


unlucky seven

by indemnis



Category: K-pop, Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, First Love, Gen, High School, M/M, Reunions, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-05-28 09:42:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15046208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indemnis/pseuds/indemnis
Summary: Seven years later, Kihyun still looks the same, which is great, but Minhyuk can’t say the same about the feelings that have somehow resurfaced despite the passing of time.





	1. 01

**Author's Note:**

> had a plan for this to be a lengthy ass one shot, but i never seem to churn out enough words to actually complete it, so here's me posting in the hopes that the comments generated will help motivate my lazy ass a little bit  
> for all my kihyuk shippers, here is some content i guess  
> ps if this looks crap and the grammar/spelling is all over the place, that's because it is

Anyone who says ex-lovers can remain friends has obviously never met Minhyuk and his ex-lover Yoo Kihyun.

It’s always a bit ironic how people who’ve met before meet again. In Minhyuk’s case, it feels a lot like a prank when he meets Kihyun again, one where he is in the centre of said joke.

Changkyun’s getting married. They get invitations to attend his wedding, a small personalised note to each of them, undeniably in Changkyun’s handwriting, still scrawny and like scratches instead of words.

Minhyuk’s reads: _Really hope you can make it; can’t wait to see you after so many years, hyung! Let me know if you’re bringing a plus one. Doesn’t matter if you don’t. I know you worry. Don’t. Just come, and be happy for me. Love you._

It brings a smile to Minhyuk’s lips when he picks it up from his mailbox after an extremely trying day at work. The muscles in his shoulder have managed to knot themselves up, but the invitation comes along like a refreshing breeze of air, and Minhyuk feels himself relax.

He pulls out his phone and plops himself onto his sofa, scrolling through his conversations on KakaoTalk. There are not many of them, but even then Minhyuk has to spend a good two minutes finding his chat with Changkyun.

His unconscious smile dims a little at how infrequently they keep in contact, but Minhyuk dismisses the thought as soon as it materialises in his mind.

Minhyuk: hey  
Minhyuk: got ur invite  
Minhyuk: congrats  
Minhyuk: i mean the last time i saw u was ages ago  
Minhyuk: but ive been very emotionally invested in ur r/ship based on just your instagram posts  
Minhyuk: shes beautiful  
Minhyuk: and you guys will be happy together

Minhyuk waits by the phone, staring a little blankly at the _1_ next to his messages, and tries his best to not overthink. It’s proving to be difficult, because it’s the most natural thing Minhyuk’s mind goes to despite the fact that work has depleted most of his energy.

He decides he should stop staring at it and throws it carelessly on the sofa before waddling away to put his briefcase away as he tugs on his tie.

Oh, he’s forgotten to tell Changkyun that he’s going. Walking back to his phone, Minhyuk runs a hand through his hair and wonders how early in advance he should put his leave notice through HR.

When he picks it up, the _1_ has transformed into a _0_ , and there are new messages from Changkyun.

Changkyun: hey hyung  
Changkyun: i almost couldnt tell it was u, why do u keep changing profile pictures alsdjlask  
Changkyun: anyways  
Changkyun: thank u so much u have no idea how muc h it means to me  
Changkyun: for u to say that  
Changkyun: i kno we dont talk much now bc life amirite  
Changkyun: but i hope uve been doing well  
Changkyun: also is this ur rsvp or

Minhyuk feels the ends of his lips pull up again, all his previous worries about Changkyun not replying dissipated completely. He doesn’t really know what he was worrying about -- surely Changkyun wouldn’t have sent a personalised wedding invitation to his address if he wasn’t going to speak to him.

He picks the phone back up, briefcase forgotten on his sofa again, and his thumbs fly across the screen.

Minhyuk: yes im going  
Minhyuk: wouldnt miss it for the world  
Minhyuk: also, jeju??? ugh it’s going to be beautiful  
Minhyuk: i’m so glad :)  
Minhyuk: before u ask i’ll probably not bring a +1  
Minhyuk: is it ok if i let u kno a little later though?

He runs through the limited list of close friends he has that Changkyun doesn’t already know, and his mind draws a blank. Maybe he considers that guy he went out on a Tinder dinner date with two weeks ago, but since Minhyuk didn’t bother replying to his messages after their night of passion, it seems a little exploitative to talk to him again just to ask him to attend a wedding with him.

And what for? Minhyuk is comfortable with his singlehood, though he’s certain some of his other friends that Changkyun invites would have something to say. Specifically Hoseok, but Hoseok cares a lot for him as a hyung and believes in romance and bullshit like that, so it’s not much. He’d rather deal with Hoseok’s nagging than an awkward five-day trip with One Night Stand — what was his name again?

Changkyun: ofc thats ok  
Changkyun: and oh  
Changkyun: i really dont want this to be awkward  
Changkyun: but its probably better for u to kno in advance  
Changkyun: uh kihyun hyung is goign to be there  
Changkyun: he jus rsvped to say hes going

Minhyuk stills. He’s not heard that name for ages, even if there is a yellowing photo where he and said man are in, hiding behind one of his graduation pictures hung on the wall.

Minhyuk: oh

As an afterthought, he adds.

Minhyuk: thats cool

It takes all he has in him to not ask Changkyun if Kihyun is bringing a plus one. And then promptly change his mind and say he’ll be bringing someone after all.

The last thing he wants Changkyun to think is that he still harbours feelings for Kihyun inappropriate for a friendship.

Minhyuk: jus came back from work  
Minhyuk: I’m going for a shower  
Minhyuk: hope we can talk soon  
Minhyuk: closer to the wedding  
Minhyuk: cant wait to see u!!!  
Minhyuk: love u

He holds his phone in his left hand and picks up his briefcase in his right, walking towards his empty room in the darkness, because it’s late and he’s tired and he doesn’t really care about turning on the lights right now.

The phone vibrates in his left hand and he looks at the screen.

Changkyun: thanks hyung  
Changkyun: love u <3

Minhyuk graces a smile on his lips, but even he has to admit it’s slightly forced, whatnot with the rush of emotions brought about by the knowledge that he’ll be seeing Kihyun again.

As he stares blankly at the phone, Minhyuk feels a sharp pang in his heart, remembering the same message bubble in his KakaoTalk, only from a different recipient -- a recipient that mattered -- and from a different time.

Seven years is a long time, and so many things have changed, but as Minhyuk sits himself on the edge of his bed, he wonders why it is that the world has transformed drastically, but the one constant is the dull ache in his heart whenever someone mentions Kihyun.

He takes an exceedingly long shower pondering the what if’s that he’s never been able to answer for seven years, and finds that he’s nowhere closer to the answer seven years later.

*****

“Minhyuk!” Hoseok’s voice is bright and cheerful and puts a smile on his face. Minhyuk sandwiches the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he responses with equal enthusiasm.

“Hyung! How are you?” He pours black coffee into his mug and reaches for the milk, but not before seeing his own reflection in the dark liquid, remembering that no milk, no sugar was Kihyun’s favourite.

Ever since his conversation with Changkyun, Minhyuk finds himself thinking about Kihyun at the most inconvenient times, though he would say that any time spent thinking of Kihyun is an inconvenient time.

Hoseok’s voice chirps over the device, his elation unbridled and his laughter full and hearty. Minhyuk sighs. He’s missed Hoseok. Missed high school. Missed his friends that he barely sees anymore.

He almost spills the milk, but catches himself before it slips.

Two sugars. Kihyun always told him that it was going to make him really fat. Minhyuk always told him his coffee was just sweet like him, unlike the constantly bitter Kihyun.

Kihyun always huffed and muttered something about never winning with Minhyuk.

But he did, didn’t he, in the end? He won in the only fight that mattered, and left Minhyuk in shreds.

If you asked Minhyuk in his weaker moments, he’d say that he’d rather let Kihyun win every single one of their menial arguments if it meant that he was going to come out of it in the end unscathed. But of course things don’t work that way, and Minhyuk is no longer the soft and fragile boy from seven years ago.

A lot has changed, and Minhyuk hopes he has, too.

“Are you even listening to me?” He can hear the pout in Hoseok’s voice, and he laughs. “This is payback for all the times you intentionally ignored me in high school when I talked.”

Hoseok chuckles. “Yeah, okay, you constantly shared unimportant details and gossip with me and like, 15-year-old Shin Hoseok really doesn’t care.”

Minhyuk chortles. “Hey! I liked talking; it’s not my fault all of you are so mind-numbingly boring.”

He tries not to think of Kihyun being the only exception, but he thinks it anyway.

Mirth in his voice. Hoseok had always been a sentimental boy, evolving into as an equally emotional man, the only difference being that he became growingly open with expressing said feelings. Minhyuk likes Hoseok’s change. It’s healthier for him.

“You _were_ such a chatterbox. I used to wonder how you never seemed to tire from talking.” Minhyuk chuckles. “So much talking,” Hoseok teases, “I wonder when it was that you suddenly became so quiet.”

A moment’s silence, and he hears Hoseok breathing a _shit_ under his breath. He laughs, a little shakier this time, and the mug trembles in his hold.

“It’s okay, hyung. It’s been, what, seven years? It’s not a big deal anymore, you know?”

He hears the hesitance in Hoseok’s voice, but the older man breaks into a strained laugh anyway. “Yeah. Yeah? That’s good to hear.”

Minhyuk smiles. It was never his intention to worry Hoseok, or anyone, for that matter, and he repeats what he’s just said to himself, and tries to believe it. It’s not a big deal. It’s just Kihyun.

More silence. “Hey, um, you’re going to Changkyun’s wedding, right?” Hoseok finally pipes up, and Minhyuk is thankful for the question.

“Of course! He would have my head if I didn’t go. Look at him, the youngest one in our group, getting married first.”

Hoseok bubbles with laughter. “I mean, Hyunwoo has been dating his girlfriend for ages; it’s only a matter of time. And Jooheon. Well, Jooheon will always be Jooheon, yeah?”

Minhyuk nods as he hums in agreement. The second youngest in their clique of seven was always a bit of a wild one. That and he scoffed at the notion of romance, so marriage was never for folk like him.

“Plus, he seems to be dishing out some good tracks lately. Don’t think he even has time to date, all holed up in his studio and stuff.” Hoseok adds, and Minhyuk agrees again.

“You?” Minhyuk asks with half a mouthful of coffee, Hoseok replying with fervour. “Of course! I just don’t know what to buy for a wedding gift. Do you have any ideas?” Hoseok groans at the thought of having to prepare something, and Minhyuk guffaws.

“I work in an advertising agency; all I have are ideas that no one wants to make a reality.”

Hoseok _ooo_ s and Minhyuk laughs. “Throwing shade on your company, I see.”

Minhyuk sighs. “Still gotta earn my keep.”

Hoseok sniffs and says “true, true”. The conversation goes back and forth with some mindless chatter, and Minhyuk appreciates the distraction. It’s easy to delve straight into Hoseok’s problems from work and his new boyfriend who seems a little too stoic. Minhyuk stops him in time when he says “he’s not very romantic, but boy, does he fuck good”.

Minhyuk gives a lot of decent advice for someone who’s incapable of acting on his own suggestions, but he hopes it helps Hoseok out even just a little bit.

His mug is completely drained of coffee and he leans by his kitchen counter. He looks up at the clock. 11:30 AM on a Saturday. At least Hoseok’s wasted a lot of his time.

Less time alone means less time being stuck in the little cage that is his mind, where recent thoughts spiral around a short brunette with dimples on the tips of his cheeks.

“Hey, I think I should go,” Hoseok says as there is a rustling on his end, and Minhyuk stands back up straight. “Yeah, of course, you must be busy.”

A grin in his voice. “Yeah, he’s bringing me out for a date.” He can hear the excitement in his words, and a smile finds itself on his face.

“And I thought you said he wasn’t romantic,” Minhyuk jokes, and Hoseok’s pitch rises as he gives a very passionate rap rendition of how he literally threw out the ultimatum and got him to plan a date this Saturday _or else_.

Minhyuk laughs. “Sounds both murderous and fun.”

Hoseok chuckles. “Only you would put those two words beside each other and think it’s okay.”

A guffaw. Minhyuk loves Hoseok, so much, and wonders if things would have been easier if it had been Hoseok all along.

Too many unwanted thoughts, and instead of a stroll, Minhyuk paces along memory lane, stuck in a cycle of reminiscing the old days with _what if_ s that he remembers he cannot answer.

“Have fun, hyung. Can’t wait to see you soon.”

Hoseok is kind. “Hey. Hold on tight alright? Love you.”

Minhyuk hangs up, and he’s not typically a day-drinker, but the way Hoseok had told him to hold on had punctured a little hole in his chest, and the only way he knows how to fill it up is with a glass of wine.

It’s not like he has plans this Saturday anyway.

*****

It is about a month before the wedding when Minhyuk receives a call from Hyungwon, the name familiar, but its appearance on his screen is foreign. He’s just picking up some groceries on the way home from work when his phone buzzes.

“Hello?” Minhyuk is filled with uncertainty as he picks it up, his voice masking none of it.

“Hey. Hey, Minhyuk. How you doing?”

He remembers his voice now, a medium-pitched voice with a pinch of a nasal tone. He laughs, lightly. Hyungwon had been one of his closest friends in high school, but now that the man has opened a very successful travel agency that’s just opened a branch in the shopping centre he’s in right now, he feels a little intimidated.

It’s just how Minhyuk is, generally. Intimidated by overly capable people. It’s something he’s worked on for years to no avail.

“I’m good. How are you, CEO Chae?”

He hears the embarrassment on the line. “Stop calling me that, it’s dumb.”

Minhyuk chuckles, but doesn’t push. It _has_ been so many years after all. While the old Minhyuk would’ve taken the joke and did several runs with it, he knows they’re all grown up now. Sensible adults without the same keen sense of humour, and Minhyuk didn’t want to offend.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Hyungwon laughs. “You don’t sound happy to hear from me.”

Minhyuk stills, the basket in his hand swinging. Damn. Was that the wrong thing to say?

“Hah, why would you think that?” He fails miserably at playing it cool, but if Hyungwon knew, he didn’t choose to say anything about it. There is a shuffle of papers on his end, and Minhyuk continues to stare mindlessly at rows of toilet paper.

“So, Changkyun’s wedding. In a month. You’re going, right?”

Minhyuk hums. “What kind of friend would I be if even the ever-so-flaky Chae Hyungwon turns up, and I didn’t?”

Shit. Minhyuk didn’t realise that he was slipping back into comfort with Hyungwon. They _had_ been such good friends, after all, and it was proving to be a challenge to not hurl playful insults at him every other minute.

He realises he’s worrying too much again when Hyungwon laughs. “Oh, yeah. That was a thing, wasn’t it?”

Minhyuk relaxes, and pulls a pack of toilet paper into his basket. “Yeah. You never did turn up for our breakfast meetings.”

“That’s because no one should be awake at 9AM for breakfast. No one should be awake at 9AM, period,” Hyungwon drawls, and Minhyuk can see it now, the deadpan expression on his face. Maybe not so much has changed after all.

“Anyway.”

“Anyway.” Minhyuk says, walking over to the body soap and compares prices.

“We’re throwing Changkyun a bachelor’s party,” Hyungwon says, and there is the sound of a pen scribbling. “And you’re joining.”

Minhyuk presses his lips together, the ends pulling down slightly. “I didn’t know I agreed to this.”

Hyungwon laughs. “That’s because you didn’t -- I volunteered you. You were the guy who knew how to have the most fun in high school. Would have been a pity if we couldn’t get you to come. Besides. Changkyun now works for me, so I know a lot of his friends and colleagues and everyone’s coming. Well, everyone who has a penis is coming, that is.”

Minhyuk pretends to barf as Hyungwon guffaws. He’s just about to confirm his attendance when he realises what he’s just said. “So. Everyone from high school is coming?”

“Minhyuk, I’m not an idiot. Obviously not the whole school is coming.”

“But his close friends?” He’s swallowing hard now. His throat is dry.

Hyungwon sounds busy, and slightly frustrated, because he didn’t remember Minhyuk to be such an airhead. “Look, that’s the whole point of a bachelor’s party, yes, all his close friends from high school are coming. That means all six of us, and that nerdy boy he made friends with in Chemistry or something. What’s this ab --”

Silence. The same kind that he’d experienced with Hoseok, only the older man caught on quicker than Hyungwon. “Oh.” Was the only consolation he offered.

“Is it -- are you --”

Minhyuk laughs, breathy. He’s managed to bury himself into an insane amount of workload over the past week and had made great progress with distracting himself from thoughts of Kihyun.

But Hyungwon. Fucking Chae Hyungwon. Trust him to call at this ungodly time and wash all his efforts down the pipe.

“It’s been seven years, Hyungwon. It’s not a big deal. I’m okay. I just. Haven’t seen all of you in a while. I just wanted to know.”

Hyungwon sniffs on the other end. Crap, now he’s made this awkward. But if there’s anyone who can cut through a thick fog of tension, it’s Hyungwon, with his razor-like responses.

“Okay, if you’re sure. So look, about the party right…”

And Minhyuk continues with the conversation, grateful for the distraction, even if Hyungwon had been the one to bring him up in the first place.

Even if he’s going to be seeing Kihyun a lot earlier than he’d mentally prepared himself for.

Even if the wound he’s protected with a bandage for seven years finds itself exposed. It’s like he’s picking on his old scab, fresh, piercing pain coming back in waves, like the snowball effect of not having felt it for so many years.

Minhyuk feeds himself more glasses of wine even though he has work tomorrow. It’s the only way he remembers how to fill up the gaping hole in his chest. But he doesn’t cry.

*****

He does _almost_ cry when he realises that he’s forgotten to pack his shaver into his luggage, and he’s already on the taxi on the way to the airport.

He _could_ buy another in Jeju, but his expensive electric shaver did shaves like no other, and he is a lost man without it. He’s thinking about actually going back to get it, because he is Lee Minhyuk, and Lee Minhyuk is a ridiculous man, but Hyungwon is sending more and more texts, telling him that they’re all there.

Minhyuk is so worried about his shaver and not finding a good enough one and turning up in Changkyun’s pictures looking like a licensed hobo, when he realises, ten steps into the airport, that he’s going to be seeing Kihyun.

Fuck. How did he forget? He’s mastered the art of distracting himself way too well that he’s managed to keep his thoughts at bay. Until now. Until now, when all of the worry and anxiety comes crashing down, and to make things worse, he didn’t have his favourite shaver.

This is proving to be the worst day of his life.

He almost doesn’t find the group, but as he makes his way to the gate hurriedly (Hyungwon is still blowing up his damn phone), he makes out his friends, who look pretty much the same.

Hyungwon is still the tallest, a mop of brown on his tiny head. Hyunwoo hyung is about his height, his shoulders wider than the Pacific Ocean, so he’s not difficult to spot.

Hoseok hyung looks like he’s ready to walk the runway instead of sitting in a plane, and Minhyuk rolls his eyes at his choice of leather. Leather. In an hour-long flight, where space is limited and your nose has almost direct contact with the seat in front of you? Good fucking luck.

Jooheon’s hair is blonde, so he’s the easiest to catch, and with how he’s goofing around by doing an impossible dougie in the middle of the airport, it’s obvious it’s them.

A quick head count. One, two, three, four. Four. Four?

Minhyuk frowns, but power-walks over to them, Hyungwon finally taking his eyes off his screen and breathing a sigh of relief. “You’re finally here. About fucking time.”

Minhyuk bites back an equally venomous remark because he _is_ slightly late, and even with the extra time he hadn’t managed to grab his shaver. He realises this will be a recurring theme of regret in his week-long trip.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just. Something at work cropped up and it’s like the whole place can’t function without me,” Minhyuk comments, and Hyunwoo pipes up, all cheery, like the man he is.

“That just means you’re indispensable, Minhyuk! Also, hi, haven’t seen you in a while! How’ve you been?”

“I’ve been o --”

“Leave the chit-chat to the flight, please. We actually have a plane to catch, and while I know a lot of the people from the airlines who would do me favours, halting a plane is not one of those things.”

“Is that his way of paying himself an underhanded compliment? Because that was extremely poorly executed,” Minhyuk whispers in Hyunwoo’s ear, the older man chuckling, and Hyungwon glares.

“I can hear you.” He hisses between gritted teeth, and Minhyuk breaks into a smile.

“Yeah? Oh, great! It was meant to be heard by you anyway.” Minhyuk flips his hair in an overly dramatic manner and sashays away with his suitcase rolling beside him.

He hears Hyungwon growl under his breath and Jooheon laughing so hard he can barely breathe. He missed them, and it was so easy to go back into their high school days, their dynamics immovable.

Hoseok walks beside him and throws a muscular arm over his shoulder, and he slips back into comfort.

For now, it’s easy.

*****

He never really thought to ask, but as they’re all settled in their seats, leather chafing between Hoseok’s thunder thighs, Minhyuk tries his best to not think about it.

He looks around, making sure that he hadn’t just conveniently forgotten about the existence of Kihyun. Or maybe Kihyun was sitting in another place far away from them, with every intention of avoiding Minhyuk.

But why would he? Kihyun had always been so righteous about himself. He did nothing wrong. Never does anything wrong. Why should he hide?

“You looking for something?” Hoseok asks as he tries his best to stuff himself into the cramped seat, and Minhyuk stifles a laugh.

“My shaver, and your sanity. You look like you’re having a hard time.”

Hoseok huffs as he finally manages to lodge himself into the space. “Yeah. No shit. Why the hell did I wear leather?”

Minhyuk raises his brows, amusement unconcealable. “Well, I asked myself the same question when I saw you wearing that from far away, but hey, I’m not one to judge.”

Hoseok pulls a face. As if he believes him.

Minhyuk slides back into his seat and now that he’s started to question Kihyun’s absence, he can’t get it out. So he looks around again, and Hoseok seems to have noticed.

“He, uh, had a project in Japan, so he’ll be travelling straight from there. I hear he’ll reach tonight.”

“Oh.” Is Minhyuk’s reply, and he doesn’t understand the emotion bubbling in his chest. He generally sorts his moods into two categories: the toppers and the downers.

This feels strangely like a downer, only it makes no sense. Surely he must be feeling pretty glad that he has a few more hours without Kihyun around, making everything awkward, having to make small talk.

But because he is extremely tired from having to stare at a screen before his dash to the airport without his shaver (he imagines if he mentions his shaver one more time to Hoseok, the man will pulverise his pretty face with his bulky arms), he falls asleep quickly.

He’s not much a dreamer, but there are flashing images of pink, blue, bright orange, and then a glistening smile that reminds him of hot summers, deep kisses and refreshing ice cream.

He wakes up with tears in his eyes. He reels from how the emotion in the dream had been an absolute topper, but now here he is, awake and back to reality, and all he can feel is a confusing haziness that is undoubtedly a downer, only he doesn’t know why.

*****

Minhyuk shares a room with Hoseok, apparently, which is amazing, because Hoseok tends to ramble a lot. It definitely helps take his mind off a lot of things.

He is unpacking his toiletries sans shaver when there’s a quick rap on their hotel room door. “I’ll get it!” Hoseok screams as he hears a tumble, a deafening scream, and the lock clicking.

“Hey. We’re going for dinner, you guys coming?” It’s Jooheon. Minhyuk pretends to make loud noises in the bathroom, but really he’s just hitting a tube of facial wash against the wash basin as he presses his ear against the door.

“Sounds chill.” Is Hoseok’s reply. Minhyuk is expecting a holler from the older man asking Minhyuk if he wants to join when he hears them speaking in hushed whispers.

“Is Kihyun going to be there?” Hoseok asks, and Minhyuk stills, before he realises it’s suspicious, and turns the tap on, trying his best to not stop making noises.

“I don’t really know. I think so? I didn’t think to ask Hyungwon hyung before I came out, sorry. Should I --”

“No, it’s okay. I might just text him and like --” There is a shuffle, probably Hoseok going to his phone on his bed, Jooheon tagging along behind, stepping out of his shoes.

“Hey, hyung. You know what? I know I sound really shitty saying this, but they’re going to have see each other at some point of time during this week-long trip. Wouldn’t you rather it be us seven at the dining table, pretending like everything's okay, instead of them bumping into each other in the bathroom during Changkyun’s bachelor party with all that awkward staring, where hopefully they’re not shitfaced-drunk or I bet you fifty dollars they’ll hook up in some bathroom stall, and the wedding is going to be fifty shades of embarrassment.”

Hoseok has the audacity to laugh, even though Minhyuk is genuinely considering Jooheon’s point. He’s right. It had better be an awkward dinner with five other grown men who’ll try to smooth things out than some unpleasant ‘hey how’ve you been!’ in the men’s bathroom, staring at each other take a piss.

“You think so far into the future,” Hoseok says, and Jooheon just shrugs. “Says the world’s biggest worrywart,” he replies, which probably earned him a punch in the arm, because he yelps.

“You’d think it’s me, but really it’s Minhyuk. The boy worries so much I worry for him. It’s like his brain CPU is always running on 100% all the time. He has so much to think. I just have a lot to feel.” Hoseok explains, and Minhyuk doesn’t understand the pinch of sourness on the tip of his nose.

He didn’t really think someone had analysed him so clearly, understood him so thoroughly, saw his fear of offending behind his seemingly thoughtless words.

The _what if it had been Hoseok all along_ grows bigger, but he knows it’s just another distraction he’s set up for himself.

Turning off the tap, he composes himself and breathes. More breathing. He pushes open the bathroom door, and looks surprised to see Jooheon standing there, Hoseok staring at his phone.

“Hey Jooheon. Didn’t get to talk to you much on the way, how are you!” Minhyuk goes to give the blonde man a hug, at which the songwriter takes him into his arms, and snuggles around him.

“Hey hyung. I missed you loads. Where’ve you been?”

Minhyuk laughs. “Where I’ve always been, leading my dull and mundane life. I should be asking _you_ that question!”

Jooheon chortles, and tells him all about his recent works. Minhyuk confesses that he’s been keeping tabs on his songs, and is blatantly honest with his feedback. Jooheon seems thankful for the frankness.

“Oh, hey, shoot, we were supposed to have dinner. Do you want to tag along?” Jooheon asks after a very engaging conversation about music with Minhyuk, and Minhyuk’s gaze trails to Hoseok subconsciously, almost like he’s asking for permission.

Maybe he’d always thought of Hoseok as something like his guardian, like a protector, and always had his best interests at heart. Maybe that was why it was important to know if Hoseok was agreeable for him to potentially meet Kihyun right now.

“Yeah, you should come along.” Hoseok breaks into an easy smile, and Minhyuk struggles to follow, but he does accept the invitation to dinner.

*****

Minhyuk’s palms are sweating despite the fact that it’s still chilly outside, the weather seemingly cooling and breezy, but it only contributes to the sickness in his gut.

Hoseok is laughing, talking about something that happened at work last week, Hyunwoo chuckling along as Jooheon asks more questions. Hyungwon is silent at the wheel, eyes trained on the road.

Jooheon seems to notice his silence and inches closer to his side, his face plastered right next to him. Minhyuk jumps. The blonde man just pulls his lips together in a forced smile.

“Hey. You doing okay? You look a little unwell.”

Minhyuk smiles in return, his fingers still trembling. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay, don’t worry about me, hah.”

He says this breathily, and he finds difficulty in convincing even himself. Jooheon just reaches out and holds his hand, wrapping around his shaking fingers as he grabs on tightly.

Minhyuk is thankful in the small smile Jooheon offers and the warmth from his hand. He feels his entire frame relaxing, but his stomach is still churning.

Jooheon seems to know as well, but he doesn’t comment on it, merely returning to their group conversation, reacting appropriately to Hoseok’s statements.

They finally reach the restaurant, Hyungwon pulling into a parking lot without hesitation, his swerve alarming the passengers of his vehicle. “It didn’t kill you, so shut up” was his response, and realising that he was indeed correct, they let it go as quickly as they held it against him.

Jooheon is still holding his hand, and Minhyuk feels his legs going jelly. He’s so useless. It’s been a whole seven years. It’s not like Minhyuk’s not friends with Kihyun on Facebook or anything. He knows what he looks like today, knows the most recent achievements in his career as a singer-photographer.

Yet he still acts like a high-school girl about to see her crush, less heart-fluttering, more anxiety.

Hyungwon leads the pack, as usual, whatnot with his frequent trips to Jeju -- the restaurant had been his recommendation, and people tend to let him have the best seats when he stuffs bills into their hands -- and they sit at a window table.

They’re just in the midst of ordering drinks, Minhyuk wedged in between Hyunwoo and Jooheon, when he arrives in a very flattering shirt and black jeans. There is a thin black choker around his neck, his hair an ashy grey, fringe completely swept back.

Minhyuk’s thankful he’s seated down, because Kihyun, despite all seven years, looks equally stunning, perhaps even more. He would hate to fall on his face if he were still standing.

His Doctor Martens boots clip-clop over the wooden floorboards, and his smile is blinding. Minhyuk feels his heart hammering against his chest, and Jooheon reaches out for his hand again. He squeezes his hand back so tightly, oblivious to the way Jooheon is wincing in pain.

Fuck. Minhyuk had always been such a sucker for good-looking boys, and while he’s had no trouble getting those in nightclubs over the years, this particular boy strikes a painful chord in him.

He suddenly has a violent flashback of them in tears, Minhyuk more than Kihyun, and he had just had some very harsh words thrown his way.

_So selfish… only yourself… what about me?_

Minhyuk finds his gaze turning hazy, and the smile that was on Kihyun’s face dims by a notch as he notices Minhyuk hunched in the corner. _No, please, don’t look at me._ Minhyuk feels a waterfall coming, and he grabs onto Jooheon’s sleeve.

The blonde man turns to look at him, slightly annoyed, when he realises Minhyuk’s eyes are watery, and he panics a little.

Fuck, the last thing Minhyuk wants is to attract attention, or to cry at his first meeting with Kihyun, but the memories keep gushing back, the pressure so high he can barely hold it back.

_I won’t have time to call you today, but tomorrow, okay?_

Minhyuk is very close to breaking point. Hyunwoo seems to have caught on, and his eyes are wide too, like a deer caught in headlights.

_It’s always about you, Minhyuk! You, your insecurities, your worries. And it’s always my fault: me, my issues, my faults._

Minhyuk is heaving. Kihyun comes closer, and he feels like falling apart.

_It’s always on me, isn’t it? You don’t seem to want to keep this relationship going, do you?_

Hyunwoo holds onto him by his shoulder, and Minhyuk falls into the crook of his neck, a crackled sob leaving his lips. Hoseok and Hyungwon hear it and they seem equally shocked.

“Fuck.” Hyungwon mutters under his breath, and stands up before Kihyun is close enough. “Hey, Kihyun, it’s been a while!” He steers him towards another booth as he throws his arm over his shoulder.

Minhyuk breaks apart on Hyunwoo’s shoulder. Jooheon rubs soothing circles on the small of his back, but Minhyuk suddenly releases all the pent-up emotions he’s accumulated over the years in this very moment.

He remembers why Kihyun had made him so miserable. The boy always knew how to break his heart with the most piercing words, a brutality he’d appreciated when they were together, when they weren’t directed at him, hitting bullseye on all his weak spots. They’d been so young then, callow but sweet love, a time where love’s keen sting pricked him the most.

Kihyun had received a scholarship to attend a music university in Australia. Somehow, his boyfriend at that time had only decided to share this information with Minhyuk two days before his departure.

Needless to say, Minhyuk had been furious.

“Did you think to ask me at all, if I was okay about this?” Kihyun and Minhyuk are in Minhyuk’s room, and the bed is a bundle of blankets from their messing around before Kihyun told Minhyuk that he was leaving to a place 8,324 kilometres away for three whole years.

“Ask you?” Kihyun is screeching in disbelief. He seems a little surprised by Minhyuk’s adverse reaction, but mostly it’s because he can’t swallow his pride. “Who are you, my mother? I didn’t think I needed your permission to make life decisions.”

His hands are balled into fists beside him, and Minhyuk is shaking.

Minhyuk only sees fire. “No, you don’t have to ask for permission, but it doesn’t mean I have to fucking agree to continue with _this_ when you’re thousands and thousands of kms away.”

“Is this your shitty way of breaking up with me? Because I’ll be honest, between you and my future, you must surely be naive enough to think I would choose you.”

Minhyuk already knows that for a fact, but he didn’t know that hearing it articulated would make it hurt more.

“Fuck you, Kihyun.” He throws a pillow at his face, but he misses. “Fuck you and your know-it-all self. I didn’t want to break up with you. We were so happy. We could’ve worked something out if you didn’t tell me two days before going to fucking Australia.” Minhyuk has tears in his eyes, and he really hates using it as a weapon only because he knows Kihyun is weak to his crying, but he can’t stop.

Maybe this is the end. This is the last time he’ll see Kihyun, and it has to end like this, with them screaming at each other.

It’s apparently not how it ends, because Minhyuk is sobbing and Kihyun’s heart breaks, because despite all the harsh things he says, Kihyun really does hold Minhyuk close to his heart.

So they sit down on the floor, Kihyun running downstairs to grab two mugs of chamomile tea, smiling sweetly at Minhyuk’s parents in the living room, and passing one to Minhyuk.

“I’m sorry. For saying that stuff. For not telling you. I’m an ass. I thought if I put off talking about it, then I wouldn’t have to talk about it.”

Minhyuk sips on his tea. “I get that.” He answers quietly, the rims of his eyes still red, and Kihyun still has his head hanging. Minhyuk forces a smile on the ends of his lips, and the tea is sloshing in its receptacle. Minhyuk breathes, Kihyun quickly matching for each of his inhales and exhales.

“So. Australia, huh?”

“Yeah. Sydney.”

Minhyuk chuckles. “Your English is so crappy though.”

Kihyun thinks it’s okay to laugh, shoves him by the shoulder. “Speak for yourself.”

“Well, I’m not the one going, so I’m fine.” Minhyuk mumbles into his mug, and there is silence again. The sorrys don’t mean anything anymore.

“Do you… do you think we should keep going?” Minhyuk asks finally, looking up from his drink with wet eyes, and Kihyun’s heart squeezes.

“Do you not want to?” His eyes dim with disappointment, and Minhyuk pulls his lips down. He hears his heart against his chest, their breathing deafening in the tension.

“It’s just -- I’ve heard so many stories. It’s going to be so difficult. You know how I am.”

Kihyun laughs, a little sad. “Clingy.” He points out, and Minhyuk nods in agreement. It’s not really a lie, nothing he actively hides. He likes skinship, enjoys the little touches and hugs, hand-holding and tickles.

It helps that Kihyun is just like him, only less needy.

“I don’t know if I can.” Minhyuk is honest, like he always is, a pain Kihyun’s never witnessed before in his eyes. He looks sad. Kihyun feels guilt gnawing at him. Minhyuk sips on his tea silently, and Kihyun stares. His tea’s run cold, so he puts it by the side, opting to reach out to wrap his fingers around Minhyuk’s wrist.

“Can we try?” Kihyun whispers, and Minhyuk looks up from his mug, and the expression on his face breaks Kihyun. He’s never wanted to hurt him, but singing had always been his dream. He loves him, he really does, but truth be told, he had always known it would come to this.

At the back of his mind, he’s always thought about having to make this choice, and every time it had been increasingly difficult to go for the right one. Minhyuk knows that too, and they know that the chances of high school relationships blossoming into something serious in adulthood is close to impossible.

True love is rare, if not non-existent, and Kihyun is a sensible person. Minhyuk is, too, but he worries too much and takes forever to make decisions like these.

Minhyuk’s gaze is wavering when Kihyun stares at him, and he feels himself cracking under the attention. “Yeah?” His eyes are wet again, and Kihyun smiles, his thumb rubbing circles on his forearm.

“Yeah.” Kihyun pulls the ends of his lips up just slightly, and holds Minhyuk’s wrist up to his lips, and presses a soft kiss against his pulse. It thrums quietly under his touch, and Minhyuk closes his eyes.

“Let’s try.”

*****

“Hey, do you want to go back? I know we don’t have a car, but I could probably call for a taxi and we can go back. Eat some takeaway. Watch a movie together.” Hoseok is by his side in seconds, replacing Hyunwoo’s bulky frame with an equally bulky one, and Minhyuk sniffs.

He really wanted to face Kihyun with confidence today, with the help of everyone else, but Minhyuk is also shaking like a leaf, Hoseok’s grip on him giving him some semblance of stability. He doesn’t understand himself, and it may very well be pride talking, but Minhyuk swallows the lump in his throat with a wince, and inhales.

Hoseok looks at him with cautious eyes, and Minhyuk exhales, slinking into the comfort of Hoseok’s arm behind him. “I’m okay. I just… can I just go to the bathroom for a bit? I’m hungry. I want to eat here; it’s Hyungwon’s treat and I’m planning to eat my whole body weight.”

Hoseok breaks into a chuckle and Minhyuk thinks he, too, can try to mimic it.

“Okay, do you want me to come with?”

Minhyuk shakes his head, but not before sneering. “What am I, five? I’ll be fine.”

He offers a nod of his head as he slips to the bathroom, seeing Hyungwon and Kihyun in the far corner of the restaurant, talking enthusiastically with sparks in their eyes. Minhyuk slides into the bathroom before he catches a glimpse of white pearly teeth and dimpled cheeks.

Locking himself in a stall, Minhyuk breathes. He’s not freaking out. It’s not him. He’s not bothered by a man who did nothing but rip his heart into little pieces seven years ago. He doesn’t care. Why did he cry?

If anything he should have went up to him and waged the final showdown with him. Scream the nasty things he should have yelled in return, instead of sitting there in front of a computer screen, letting Kihyun hurl angry words at him.

He remembers the stark sting of his casual insults. The ones before the break up, the small ones he litters in daily conversations when they exchange text messages, the building up of anger from the both of them. Saying things like Minhyuk is way too clingy, that he wants to trap him in even when he’s so far away. Gets annoyed when Minhyuk sends one too many ‘I miss you’ messages, says Minhyuk is guilt-tripping him for not being there.

On hindsight, maybe it was really just Kihyun’s guilt for not being there with Minhyuk when university got too tough, or when Minhyuk had a horrible day working part-time at the convenience store.

Too many times he’d wished he was there, giving him the support he needed, being the shoulder to lean on, but it’s too late now to turn things back. He probably would’ve still chosen Australia if given the choice again, anyway.

And maybe Minhyuk would have made a different choice about them trying out a long-distance relationship, not that any of these _what if_ s mattered anymore then than it does now.

His hands are still shaking, but he stares at them hard enough, and the tremor weakens. His heart is made of steel. He doesn’t feel. It’ll be okay.

So Minhyuk doesn’t cry anymore, gaze transfixed on his fingers, the lines on his palms, and the shaking stops.

When he leaves the stall and stares at his swollen eyes in the mirror by the wash basin, he wishes that his pining for the man stops too. (But of course love, unlike his tears, doesn’t just screech to a halt even if he jams on the brake as hard as he can.)

*****

It’s easier to not feel bad when there’s a way out. When their arguments get too heated, Kihyun can just end the video call, pretending that Minhyuk isn’t whining to Hoseok and crying his eyes out.

Australia is fun. He’s met a lot of fellow Koreans through some community church event, and there are people asking him out for drinks on days that he doesn’t have classes. Kihyun says yes.

Minhyuk is strumming his fingers against his laptop, impatient. It’s been ages since he’s seen Kihyun, even through the pixels on his screen.

The call goes through, and Minhyuk tidies his fringe before Kihyun appears, a blob of blurriness on his end, and Minhyuk squints.

“Sorry,” Minhyuk thinks Kihyun says, because his voice is dropping out every few milliseconds, “the Internet here is horrendous.”

Minhyuk laughs easy. “Makes you miss the fast speeds here, yeah?”

Minhyuk can barely make out his silhouette, but he can tell there is no humour in Kihyun. He sighs, and then chews on his nails.

There is awkward silence for minutes, and then Minhyuk clears his throat and sits back up. He doesn’t know what to say. The two of them, who have never had a dull or quiet moment, have exhausted their topics. It’s a horrifying realisation to come to when his boyfriend is thousands of kms away, but it’s not like there’s much he can do.

“So.”

“Mmm.” Kihyun hums, and Minhyuk can tell he’s scrolling through his phone instead of looking at Minhyuk on the screen.

“You been okay? Uni is fine?”

Kihyun sniffs. He hears him better now, though there is no lilt in his voice. “Yeah. Busy. Need to catch up twice as much because I’m crappy at English.”

Minhyuk laughs, and he thinks he sees Kihyun flinch. He blinks. He doesn’t know why there is a giant wall between the both of them. Maybe it’s the fact that they _are_ literally an ocean away, but the distance makes a shiver run down his spine.

Minhyuk sniffs again. Kihyun is smiling at something on his phone, and then he pulls away his hand that was on the table to his screen, and starts typing something. The smile lingers on his face, and Minhyuk both feels the ends of his lips pulling up at Kihyun’s happiness, and the sharp pang in his chest because Kihyun is smiling, but not because of him.

He wonders who has managed to hold his attention so well, in a way that makes him look away from the boy he claims to love.

“Who are you talking to?” Minhyuk asks, the same smile plastered on his face, pretending like he’s showing interest in Kihyun’s life instead of intruding. Kihyun’s head jerks up immediately, almost instinctively, and he stuffs his phone behind him.

“No one important,” he replies casually, and just spends the next few seconds in silence, staring at Minhyuk.

This is it. Minhyuk can feel it, the heap of anxiety in him snowballing and launching itself off the edge of a cliff, crashing down onto him like an avalanche. This is the end.

It’s not even as if they’ve screamed at each other -- they’ve done that multiple times before already, and arguing with a pixelated picture of his boyfriend is not exactly how he would have preferred for things to go down -- but this is where they’ve reached the end of the road. The knowledge leaves a bitter taste at the back of his throat, but he’s done pretending.

“Hey Kihyun?”

“Mmm?” Kihyun asks, his eyebrows hiking up, a little quirk of his lips, and Minhyuk remembers him as the boy he loves, even though it hurts.

“We need to talk.”

Kihyun is not dense. In fact, he picks up body language very easily, and notes the way Minhyuk is squirming in his own skin. He averts his gaze, looks at his own feet. “Actually, you know what, I’m tired. I need to go to bed; can we talk next time?” Lifts his head up to look at Minhyuk again, who’s wearing an unreadable expression on his face.

Minhyuk stares into Kihyun’s eyes, or what his eyes are in the form of three pixels, and realising that he doesn’t know how to handle all of this, concedes.

“Yeah, okay. Next time, then. You stay safe and keep me updated, okay?”

“Okay.” Kihyun offers a small smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and Minhyuk feels his insides churn.

“I love you,” Minhyuk says, and Kihyun nods.

He doesn’t say it back.

*****

The table falls silent when Minhyuk returns. He’s done his best to powder the area around his eyes to remove most of the redness around its rims, but there is only so much makeup can do.

He’s looking straight at Hoseok, who flashes him a tight smile.

“Hey, you’re back. Sit here.” Hoseok shifts closer to the person next to him -- Hyunwoo -- and makes a small space for Minhyuk. Minhyuk tidies his dark hair and nods before taking a seat. He doesn’t look around, but he’s aware of the extra pair of cautious eyes on him.

Taking a big gulp, Minhyuk wills his heart to stay very still as he leans forward, chest against the table. “Hey Kihyun. Nice to see you.”

It’s obvious that the grey-haired man is surprised to be on the receiving end of his greeting, and he almost stands out of courtesy. The irony is not lost on Minhyuk.

“O-oh, hi, Minhyuk. Nice to see you too.” He laughs, a guilty one, one that sounds a little breathless, like he’s just ran a marathon. Sometimes Minhyuk hates being the one who observes too much -- Kihyun is just the way he remembered him to be, his little ticks and quirks all the same, and Minhyuk tunes into his behaviour like it’s the only wavelength he’s allowed to be on.

He knows of too many things he probably shouldn’t, and it should have been something endearing in the past. Today, it just feels more like a joke than anything else.

He doesn’t know why he feels so horrible. Kihyun should be the one feeling lousy, of all people, because he knows just how much he’d hurt Minhyuk before. He should be the one staying up all these nights, his guilt gnawing at his conscience, shedding all those tears he’d never bother to cry for Minhyuk.

But of course Minhyuk makes the mistake of being the one to be more in love in the relationship, and when you love more, you’re at the mercy of the other person to hurt you.

It’s a lesson that Minhyuk has had to learn the hard way.

“Shall we order some appetisers first?” Hyungwon asks with a large, amicable grin on his face, and Minhyuk wonders how he’d be able to stomach anything at all tonight.

*****

He and Kihyun had the most cliche of romance stories. They started out as what they would call friendly rivals -- both of them had a knack for music, and would vye to come up first during the school’s annual singing competition -- and involved in mindless banter that entertained both themselves and their friends.

It was probably during Year 10, where they were forced to become partners for a Maths project, and found solace in one another’s horrifying inability to manipulate numbers.

They didn’t ace their project for obvious reasons, but at least they earned themselves a pretty good friend. As time went by, they got closer. The banter continued, but the rivalry died down, and on one humid summer afternoon, where the Sun shone a little too brightly and its rays burnt into their skin, in Kihyun’s old bedroom where the windows were open and the air was still, Minhyuk had his first kiss.

It felt natural. Right. Like it was meant to have happened since a long time ago, like Minhyuk truly found his calling in the space beside Kihyun. And when he pulled away to Kihyun wearing the biggest grin on his face, he couldn’t help but smile back, his chest expanding and exploding, the pieces landing as shards by their feet, and he couldn’t be bothered to put them back. So he leaned in and kissed Kihyun again.

*****

Minhyuk is surprisingly enjoying dinner quite a fair bit. As long as he’s not stuck with just Kihyun, he’ll count his blessings. Actually, coming to think of it, outside of their first greeting words, Minhyuk hasn’t managed to speak to Kihyun at all.

He’s unsure if it’s his friends’ way of preventing them from interacting, seeing as Kihyun is seated on the other side of the table at the other end. Regardless, Minhyuk is thankful.

Dinner goes by without much of a hitch, Hoseok, Jooheon and Minhyuk absorbed in their little bubble as they discussed the best restaurants in Seoul, while Hyungwon, Hyunwoo and Kihyun partook in some mundane conversation about scenery and the likes.

They eat slowly, Minhyuk just appreciating the way Hoseok is fussing over him, and he lets himself be taken care of for a while. He doesn’t admit that his gaze travels to the tuft of grey hair every now and then, and he’s sure Hoseok caught him looking a couple of times, but if he did, he’s not saying anything about it.

Dinner ends, and everyone is fighting to pay, Jooheon being the most aggressive one of them all when he literally tries to push Hyungwon away from the cashier as he puts out his card between his fingers. Hyungwon is not having any of that, however, insisting that he foots the bill, and Jooheon can take care of the next one if he so desires.

Jooheon agrees reluctantly with a sullen look on his face, and the hyungs take turns to pinch him on his cheeks, because it may be seven years, but Jooheon is still just as adorable to the older men as he had been before, and not even time will convince them otherwise.

Walking out of the restaurant with their bellies full, the group of five head towards the carpark, and stop briefly in their tracks when Kihyun grabs onto Hyungwon’s arm, forcing the taller man to swerve around to look at him.

He hesitates before speaking. “Uh, I gotta go. I have something else to tend to before going back to the hotel, so I’ll see you tomorrow?”

He’s not looking at anyone else other than Hyungwon, even though everyone else is there, and it’s obvious he’s addressing the whole group. Hyungwon frowns. “At this time? In Jeju?”

Kihyun laughs. “You’re not the only one with friends in places outside of Seoul.”

Hyungwon hikes up a brow. “Woah, alright. I was just surprised. It didn’t occur to me that you were such a social butterfly. You never were.”

Kihyun huffs out a small chuckle. Minhyuk feels like he’s eavesdropping on their conversation, even though he isn’t. There’s just something about their interaction -- the interaction between two best friends -- that somehow seems private.

“Well, Hyungwon. People change.”

 _Ouch_. The brown-haired man knows that the statement is not directed at him, but he can’t help but feel the fresh pierce of his words, and how absolutely ironic it is to hear it from him. Almost like a confession, like a piece of truth Minhyuk deserved but never received. People change, indeed, and Kihyun was the prime example of that, only perhaps he hadn’t considered the people he’d hurt in the process of his morphosis. Or maybe: he just didn’t care.

Hyungwon has no good answer to that, and protrudes his lower lip as he shrugs lightly. “Guess you’re right. Go and socialise then, I guess. We’ll see you tomorrow. Stay safe, alright?”

Kihyun guffaws. “Who are you, my mum? I’ll be okay,” he says, and Minhyuk has an inkling of a feeling that Hyungwon doesn’t really care, but he doesn’t question it. After all, Hyungwon appears to be the person that was and still is the closest to Kihyun, and Minhyuk won’t pretend to be the person that knows Kihyun the best anymore.

They share a small hug, and Kihyun looks up to the rest of the group. “I’ll be going now. See you guys tomorrow.”

“Bye Kihyun.” “Bye Kihyunnie hyung.”

“Stay safe.”

And when Kihyun’s eyes land on Minhyuk, there is an indescribable expression on his face. Minhyuk presses his lips together in a tight line, and nods curtly when Kihyun greets him goodbye with a tip of his chin.

There is a flurry of emotions ready to whip up a storm within him, but Minhyuk knows this is not a good time. It’s never a good time, honestly, and tries to remember that the focus of this trip is Changkyun and his wedding.

It’s not about him. Not about Kihyun. Not about them -- or what they used to be. It’s about Changkyun.

As if sensing his inner turmoil, Hoseok leans in closer to Minhyuk and offers his arm, a large goofy grin on his face, and Minhyuk sinks into his touch, glad to have Hoseok as a distraction.

*****

Minhyuk hasn’t seen or talked to Kihyun in three months. He buries himself in assignments that aren’t due for another three weeks, which is uncharacteristic of him, and takes on more shifts at the convenience store. He watches trash TV, goes to the cinema alone, forces himself to read, because it’s the only activity that’ll lull him into certain slumber.

It all seems fine and dandy, and for a long moment, Minhyuk forgets about Kihyun. Forgets the stabbing pain in his gut when he thinks about being ignored, forgets his spiteful reluctance to be the first one to initiate a conversation, forgets that he exists. For a while.

But it happens when Hoseok is all dressed up to go to the club, and Minhyuk is observing carefully from the side. (He’s not allowed to give fashion advice, because Hoseok is a better dresser than he’ll ever be.)

“Hey,” Hoseok says suddenly, “you should come along with me.”

Minhyuk looks at him with a confused expression, and Hoseok chuckles. “Come with me. To the club. There are some good fish there.”

Minhyuk swallows. “I don’t go clubbing,” he says plainly, like he’s expected Hoseok to know better, considering the number of years they’ve been flatmates.

“You can start!” Hoseok states, and he has this way of charming people, like Minhyuk, only in a very endearing way. Minhyuk gulps.

“I can’t.”

“Why?” Hoseok is shrugging on a leather jacket that wraps around his strong biceps, and Minhyuk shakes his head.

“I just can’t.” He flips over from his stomach to lie on his back, and stares blankly as the ceiling fan spins in circles. Round and round. And round and round.

He can hear Hoseok’s deep inhale. “Don’t tell me you haven’t talked to him.” The words hang between the both of them, sounding almost like a threat, but Minhyuk doesn’t feel the sting.

“I’ve been busy.”

Hoseok sighs, clearly loud enough for Minhyuk to hear. “That’s bullshit. You’ve been keeping yourself busy.”

“I don’t see the difference.”

The older man strides over to his own bed and plops himself on the edge. “You can’t keep doing this, Minhyuk. You have to deal with it at some point of time.”

His name gets stuck in his throat. Minhyuk doesn’t know when or how, but there came a certain point in time where even mentioning his boyfriend’s name scared him. Like if he finally said it out in words, it would mean that it was true.

Minhyuk wants so desperately for it to be untrue. He doesn’t want Kihyun to turn into bubbles, to be a dream that he had in his palms for a short fleeting moment only for it to vanish.

“I --”

A thorn. A thorn pokes at his lungs, and he suddenly struggles to breathe. Hoseok calls for him. “Minhyuk. Minhyuk?”

His voice is distant, like a faraway sound, like the effects of an echo boggling the insides of his mind. And then he trembles, his vision getting blurry, his whole frame shivering. “Shit,” he thinks he hears Hoseok say, but he doesn’t feel him. Doesn’t feel the familiar, warm hold around him in the absence of his boyfriend, the way Hoseok holds him like he’s worth something.

“Minhyuk, are you okay?” The younger boy doesn’t even realise he’s crying until he finds tears dripping from the side of his cheeks, plip-plop on Hoseok’s pristine white sheets, water spots spreading.

“Can I -- can I touch y --”

“Please.” He almost begs, his voice cracking at the end of his word, pleading for a touch, a simple physical interaction -- anything. Anything that’ll confirm that he is loved, real, concrete, and that his affections could be here, anchored right next to him, and not a whole ocean away through electronic signals.

So Hoseok hugs him from the side, and Minhyuk plunges into his musky cologne, into his soft, tender embrace, and lets himself break. Because Hoseok treats him gently, as if he were a child, and sometimes he needs just that. Needs someone to look out for him, to ask about his day, to check if he’s eaten all three of his meals daily.

Yet his heart yearns for a man who does none of those things, a boy who is so utterly selfish, but so absolutely heart-wrenchingly beautiful.

Minhyuk asks for it, like a masochist, like he’s asking to be hurt, but he can’t help his heart. He can’t help but fall in love with a boy who doesn’t know how to carry his fragile heart and pride properly, and it wasn’t that Minhyuk was fond of the pain, either. He just couldn’t help himself with falling in love with Kihyun.

“Minhyuk,” Hoseok says after the younger boy has visibly calmed down, the rims of his eyes still a bright red, and Hoseok most certainly has missed his ride to the club. Minhyuk feels horrible, again, like he’s bogged Hoseok down, the same way he holds Kihyun down, ball and chain to his ankles.

“You need to talk to him. You can’t keep doing this.”

He falls silent, doesn’t say a single word. There is a storm raging within him, and he cannot find the right vocabulary for any of his emotions.

“I’m scared, hyung.” He finally settles and whispers. “I don’t want to lose him for good.”

The older man sighs, his whole frame seemingly collapsing into himself, and Minhyuk wonders how much he’s hurt Hoseok in the process of him hurting himself. Hoseok cares too much for him; he doesn’t deserve his love.

And when the older boy looks at him knowingly, Minhyuk knows what the answer is.

_But Minhyuk, you’ve already lost him, whether or not you want to word it out._

And Minhyuk knows -- he’s not a fool -- but maybe. Just maybe. Maybe if he pulls it out longer, maybe if they extend their pain for a while more, maybe if they don’t talk about it. Maybe it’ll all work out fine in the end.

Minhyuk forces Hoseok out of the house, insisting that he’s alright, and that he deserves a night off. And something in their interaction must have set him off, because Minhyuk is done pretending, and in a text message that Minhyuk cannot read properly from the way his tears are blurring his vision, Minhyuk says:

_Kihyun-ah. Let’s talk._

*****

“Look after him, okay?” The brown-haired man loiters around the hotel lobby, busying himself with the fake potted plants in the large hall, and acts as if he can’t hear Hyungwon talking to Hoseok, how they’re all tiptoeing around him, refusing to mention Kihyun’s name.

Minhyuk is not a child, and he doesn’t need the protective bubble, but he’s just had a bit of a breakdown in a restaurant, and is not about to start fights that he cannot win.

If they want to handle him with kid gloves, they can. Minhyuk doesn’t particularly care.

The man with the blue highlights returns with the brightest smile, and Minhyuk finds himself smiling back. Hoseok was truly an angel sent from above to keep him company, to protect him, to love.

The _what if_ s always come back when he thinks of how kind Hoseok is, but there is a line that he never crosses, and never wants to cross. Some people are just not there to exist as romantic partners, while others force him into the most heart-aching romances, bruising everyone on their way out.

And Minhyuk supposes he is a little wretched in the way he’d rather follow his heart than his head, even if he knows, logically, that he’d hurt less if he went with someone who would care for him the way Hoseok did.

“Let’s go back to our room. I have a cup ramen stash in my suitcase that I can’t wait to break into,” the older man states, and Minhyuk laughs easy. He says goodnight to Jooheon and Hyungwon and Hyunwoo, and promises to meet them at the lobby at 10 tomorrow to do up the preparations for the party.

They return to their room on the 17th floor, and Minhyuk steps out of his shoes, ready to strip and go in for a shower when Hoseok tugs on his forearm. He spins around to see the older man staring at him with the strangest expression, and it doesn’t take him long to identify it as pity.

“Are you okay?”

Minhyuk pries his arm away from his hold, and upon seeing the dash of hurt across Hoseok’s face, regrets it almost immediately. “I’m fine.” He tips his chin upwards in a show of mock arrogance, and Hoseok’s gaze turns soft.

“You know you don’t have to hide anything from me, right?”

Minhyuk smiles weakly, huffing out a breath of air. “I’m _fine_. Stop worrying. It’s been, what, six years?”

“Seven,” Hoseok corrects, and the dark-haired man regards him with ambivalence. “Seven,” he repeats, but it’s not as if he hasn’t been keeping count all these years.

“I’m okay,” he states, again, and Hoseok holds his stare for a long moment before letting him go. “Okay,” he says on an exhale, and makes a move to his suitcase, nodding his head. “If you’re sure.”

Minhyuk grins. “Never been more sure about anything else in my life.”

But as the bathroom door slides behind him, the sound of the world outside sucked into a vacuum, Minhyuk is left with his thoughts and the constant rush of the feeling of a downer, and he doesn’t know why he lied, and whose benefit it was for.

But Minhyuk doesn’t cry. It’s been a long, long time since he has cried for Kihyun, and the sliver of weakness at the restaurant embarrassed him. It filled him up with shame, with guilt, with feelings that he’d refused to relate to for seven years, and he’s not about to start again now.

He can do this, right? They were friends before they were lovers, and now they’re just reverting to what they were before.

(But realistically, Minhyuk knows that that could never be the case, not with Kihyun, at least.)

*****

“I’m busy.” Kihyun is looking into the screen and not the camera, and Minhyuk feels bile rising. He steadies himself, and breathes.

“Then I’ll keep it short.”

Kihyun’s gaze flickers to Minhyuk’s face for a split second. He’s trembling, and Kihyun can tell that he’s nervous. Kihyun can always tell things about him, just like how he understands Kihyun. He hates it.

It irritates him to his very core, the idea that someone else knows him just as well as -- or even better than -- himself. Who does he think he is, strutting into his life like that and taking charge and assuming all these things that always turn out true?

A second’s pause. Minhyuk gulps, and he spits it out like it’s venomous, but his expression is still calm.

“Let’s end this. Here. Now.”

Kihyun falls silent for an extended period of time, then he opens his mouth, like he’s about to say something, but closes it back up again.

Minhyuk waits. He waits because he doesn’t know what to say, because this hurts him just as much as it should hurt Kihyun.

“What.”

Minhyuk looks away. “I said, let’s break up.”

Kihyun blinks a couple of times, just to make sure he’s hearing this right. “I’m coming back to Korea in a month.”

The boy lets out a bitter laugh. “I know.”

“Wh -- why would you do this now?”

It’s suddenly gone so cold. Minhyuk shivers, and wraps his arms around himself. “If not now, then when? When will we ever have the time to sit down to talk? You’re always so _busy_.”

The brunette wears a frown. “What, so now you blame me for not having enough time for you? I have a _life,_  Minhyuk, and I’m trying to live it. I work in a fried chicken shop for 20 hours a week, then I go to classes, then I try to make friends, because I’m alone in this stupid country.”

And Minhyuk doesn’t know what comes over him, but his answer comes as a whisper. “A stupid country you chose to go to.”

He knows he really shouldn’t have said that. He doesn’t know why he said that, but perhaps a big part of him still resents Kihyun for leaving him in Seoul. Resents Kihyun for promising to work things out with him, only to leave him alone with his unwelcoming thoughts, without his partner in crime.

“Is this what this is about?” Kihyun is furious now, and Minhyuk can tell from the way his lips are twitching. “You’re so selfish. You only think about yourself. What about me? My happiness? I want this, Minhyuk. I want to learn music in a place where music isn’t just some ‘additional hobby’ you add to your CV. I want to do it as a career, where people appreciate it. I want -- I wanted this.”

Minhyuk shakes his head, his tears threatening to fall. “Am I really so selfish to want you for myself?” he asks, and he knows he really shouldn’t have said that, either, but now he’s on a roll, and he can’t stop. “You’re always on your phone. Talking to your new friends. Going out drinking with them. I’m this far away. I don’t know what you’re doing, who you’re talking to, how you’re coping. I don’t know if you’ve found someone prettier to kiss, if you --”

“Do you hear yourself?” Kihyun cuts him off, with a katana, through his lines, through his heart. “Do you even know what you’re saying now? Are you really suggesting that I cheated on you with someone else?”

“That’s not what I’m saying, but you can’t blame me. I don’t know. I know nothing about your new life, about your new friends, about the things you do.” Minhyuk feels his anger boiling in him, and this is how they’ve always been. Hot-headed, reckless, impulsive. He’s much too irate to let regret have a chance at taking over his brain, and Kihyun, as he always is, fights fire with fire.

“That’s because you’re not my fucking nanny.”

“But I’m your fucking boyfriend, and I’m starting to feel less and less like one!” He slams his fist on the table, and the laptop shakes along with it, Kihyun growing increasingly provoked as he speaks.

“It’s always about you, Minhyuk. You, your insecurities, your worries. And it’s always my fault: me, my issues, my faults. So what, you’re the saint now, are you? You’re doing me a huge favour for sticking around despite me going overseas to pursue my dreams? Why can’t you just be fucking happy for me, just once?”

Minhyuk sees red everywhere. “Me? You _asked_ me to stay, Kihyun. _You_ told me we’ll try and make it work. Where did you try? Where is your effort? How many times in a day do I need to be the one to initiate the conversation only to be fed with one-word answers? I’m not happy for you? I’m so happy for you, Ki, but I’m so alone. I’m so tired, and you’re not fucking helping.”

“Listen to you. There you are talking about yourself again. You’re alone. You’re _tired_? I struggle daily with understanding the local language and do all of this alone in a foreign country and _you’re_ tired.”

“You chose it. You chose it yourself. No one put a fucking gun against your head and made you go. I asked if you could not go, and you said you had to. So you don’t get to fucking complain.”

“And you’re going to reciprocate me with what? With telling me that you want to break up one month before I’m back? You’re a piece of shit, you know that? I don’t know why I even liked you. You were always so clingy, so annoying, like a fly I couldn’t swat.”

Minhyuk stops. Everything stops. The fury, the blazing flames around him stop, and his world ceases function all at once.

“You take that back.” Minhyuk swallows, and he glares at Kihyun through the screen. “You take all of that back right now.”

“No. I will not. And you know what? Let’s break up, I don’t give a fuck. You wanted things to turn ugly? They’ll be ugly, just the way you want it. I wish I’d never --”

“No. Stop. Don’t you fucking say it, Yoo Kihyun.”

“What, you’re afraid?” The anger in his eyes is obvious, and the previous vexation bubbled up in Minhyuk dissolves, recedes, and he can only feel the sharp stab of Kihyun’s statement. “You’re afraid of hearing the truth? It hurts, now?”

“Stop.” Tremors spread their way through his whole body, and he fully shudders. Minhyuk closes his eyes. This is not how he had expected things to turn out. He thought with how little Kihyun cared that he would be agreeable to breaking up mutually, and Minhyuk would just have a shit ton of ice cream to mend his broken heart.

He didn’t want this. Didn’t ask for the war of words, didn’t expect them to be sparring with phrases that would ultimately make large dents in their pride.

And he knows the words that he’s about to say will create an unfillable hole in his chest, and that he’d never recover from it for a long, long time.

“I wish I’d never met you.”

“No.” Minhyuk whispers.

“Never cared about your stupid little hobbies, or the weird stuff you liked.”

Minhyuk shakes his head, his whole frame shivering as he struggles to block out his words.

“You were just there because I was lonely, and lonely people do stupid shit. Like dating you. Like asking you to stay even though I was going overseas.”

“No, Kihyun.” A small, unconcealed sob. “Kihyun. Please.”

“I never loved you.”

And the words are there, in the open, Kihyun still seething with an emotion that cannot be put out, and Minhyuk is left shredded to pieces.

He sobs, and the sound is heartbreaking. His gut twists, and twists, and twists, and he cannot breathe. His tears cloud his sight, and his lungs feel like they might give way, and Minhyuk for a moment thinks it wouldn’t have been such a bad idea even if they did.

He scrambles for purchase, grabs onto the sheets beneath him, and he doesn’t know if the Skype call is still ongoing, if Kihyun is just sitting there as panic paralyses him, gripping at him so tightly he can hardly breathe.

He asked for this, didn’t he? He requested the break up. He was the one who asked to be separated from Kihyun, so why did he feel so fucking messed up?

All the things Kihyun said he was and wasn’t seemed so true. So accurate. Every jab at his personality, every attack went straight for where it hurt, and Minhyuk cannot fix his wounds. Doesn’t know how to.

And perhaps the most messed up thing about all of this is the fact that he loves Kihyun. Still so very, very much, to a degree where he isn’t sure if he’d be capable of loving another person as much, and to be insulted by the person you love most made the last of his strength escape him in a single blow.

He doesn’t have time to think. He slams the cover of the laptop shut with a resounding bang, and falls back onto his back, curls up into a ball, and wails. Minhyuk cries, bawls, makes an inhumane sound that attracts a half-awake Hoseok from next door over.

He plunges into the comfort Hoseok offers and lets Hoseok hold him as he goes through a few panic episodes, lets Hoseok kiss his hair when he trembles and cries, and really, Minhyuk should have been so glad, so relieved that he’s free from Kihyun.

But why does it hurt so much everywhere?

*****

He doesn’t sleep very well, but when Hoseok asked, Minhyuk explains that he doesn’t really sleep that well in beds that aren’t his own. The older man doesn’t question it, and agrees that it happens to him sometimes, too.

Jooheon and Hyungwon and Hyunwoo look fresh and preppy in the early mornings, while Minhyuk just looks like the cat dragged him in, his eyebags dark and obvious under the artificial light in the dining area.

“You look like shit.” Trust Hyungwon to never candy-coat his words, and Minhyuk lifts his middle finger tiredly. “Says the man who never saw the light of day because he’d always wake up after noon and go attend his weird 3:30 classes.”

Hyungwon rolls his eyes. “It’s called good planning. It means that I don’t have to wake up at some godforsaken hour and have _breakfast_.”

“You’re faring pretty well now,” Jooheon points out, and the taller man chuckles. “What to do. When you run a business you kind of have to sacrifice a lot of sleep.” He looks away from Minhyuk’s raised middle finger and returns to his scrambled eggs.

“Well, you also own a whole building in the heart of Seoul, so I think it’s some decent trade-off.” A voice comes from behind them, and Minhyuk freezes. He’d been so caught up with the memories of his ex-lover, that he’d forgotten that his ex-lover is on this trip with him. Great.

“Do you really? That’s impressive,” Hyunwoo speaks with his mouth full, and Kihyun laughs before slapping him on the shoulder. “That’s gross, hyung,” he chides before taking a seat beside Hyungwon, his silver grey hair flat against his fringe.

Barefaced -- without the makeup and the choker and the fancy boots, Kihyun looks younger. Almost as young as what he looked like seven years ago. It doesn’t particularly strike Minhyuk’s fancy.

“Shut up, Ki. You’re somewhat famous and have all these gigs. You’re basically half a celebrity now, and you’re giving me shit for it.”

Kihyun’s eyes turn into crescents as he laughs. Minhyuk can’t peel his eyes away. Captivating. Minhyuk could never resist being the tiny moon orbiting around Kihyun, infatuated by his every move, stunned by his every smile.

“Stop embarrassing me in front of the actual celebrity.” He gestures lightly to Jooheon who blushes a dark red, and Minhyuk finds the ends of his lips pull up. He still adores Jooheon to bits. Guess some things never change.

Minhyuk fills in the gaps when they’re left out, almost like they’re meant to be for him, waiting for him to make up for them with his boisterous personality, with a large degree of frivolity, with his laughs and his ability to make people laugh.

And honestly, in any other situation it would be the kind of thing that makes Minhyuk feel so good about himself, but right now it just feels like a weight on his shoulder, like a burden he has to bear, and if the atmosphere were to steer even just a little off course, it would be his fault.

He chuckles, gives reactions where they’re needed, but he doesn’t directly come into contact with Kihyun. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting. Surely Minhyuk means little to nothing to Kihyun now. Modern-day Kihyun, the big boy, the adult man who knows how to tell puppy love from genuine functional relationships.

Only Minhyuk still thinks they’re the same thing, and a small part of him wishes that he meant as much to Kihyun as Kihyun still means to him.

 


	2. 02

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wedding inches closer and Minhyuk has to admit several truths that have sustained through the years.

Realistic.

Perhaps the most appropriate word to describe Kihyun would be this word, and while he is a person with varying degrees of other words, the word to describe the heart of his being has to be _realistic_.

Growing up, Kihyun was reminded repeatedly by his parents, who had opened a small coffee shop near their apartment and brought him and his brother up by hand painstakingly, that it was important to be down-to-earth.

They were happy with Kihyun wanting to pursue his dreams. They were supportive of his decision to go into singing, which was a path less lucrative than many would like. But what they didn’t want their son to become was a person who had his head in the clouds, a boy with dreams but not the ability to make them his reality.

Kihyun was that person. He wasn’t bitter. He was determined. Strong-willed. Adamant. He had big dreams and even bigger plans, and he had every mind to achieve every single one of them.

And he never did waver for anything, or anyone.

Kihyun was a stubborn person. Things had to follow a certain standard, some level of acceptability he’s managed to draw up in his mind, and then expects everything else to abide by it. It’s exhausting being him, and even more so being around him.

So Kihyun doesn’t have close friends. He grows colder as he ages, opens up to a friend only for them to reject him for his many idiosyncrasies. He doesn’t believe in companionship.

See, the thing with him was that he was selfish. Because of how desperate he was for things to go his way, he grew to be a teenage boy who asked too much of himself, and then of everyone else.

He took, and took, and took, but he never thought to give. And when he realised, one day, that he liked Minhyuk, liked him in a way where he knew it was _different_ , where it wasn’t like liking Hyungwon — the only friend who’d managed to stick with him for God knows whatever reason — that the gaping hole he’d had in his chest would be filled.

Filled with the crinkle of Minhyuk’s eyes when he smiles, filled with his pearly white teeth, filled with his warm, big hand wrapped around his, and the softest kisses he gives.

Kihyun thinks he could, maybe, entertain the idea of growing old with someone who wouldn’t complain about him being who he is.

And for a long, long time, he was happy. He always found happiness in his solitude, though much of it was without choice, and now he’s found happiness in companionship.

And that was enough. Up until high school ended, where the choices in life mattered more than getting detention or a suspension. Where the choices in life determined which path he’d take for the next decade or so, and Kihyun was down-to-earth, the way his parents taught him to be. _Realistic_.

It didn’t help that his realism came with a lethal dose of honesty, and when Minhyuk broke down in his bedroom at the realisation that Kihyun was going to be overseas for three whole years, guilt gnaws at him.

It’s going to happen again. He’s going to lose someone again, and this time it’s not just anyone. It’s _Minhyuk_. Minhyuk with the crinkle in his smile, Minhyuk with his neat beautiful teeth, Minhyuk with his warm kisses.

And Kihyun is terrified. He’s never been afraid of losing anything or anyone so far in all 18 years of his life, and the idea of having to let Minhyuk go just so he can pursue his dream in a faraway place is terrifying.

He doesn’t want to make choices. Doesn’t want to choose between the bearer of his heart and his dreams. So he masks it up with fury, with a loud argument, where he fights Minhyuk and tells him that he has no right to tell him what to do.

Because even though Kihyun doesn’t fancy choices, he knows, that at the end of the day, he is realistic, and that’s the truth he has to live.

*****

“Hey.”

The voice sounds almost like it did all those years ago, only now there is somewhat a note of lethargy in it, and Minhyuk doesn’t register that the greeting is directed towards him until a long five seconds later.

 _Holy shit_.

Hyungwon’s just ushered them into the function room where they’ll be helping out with the decorations. There is a questionable box of toys that should belong anywhere but there, and Minhyuk is pulling streamers out of a bag.

(He was disappointed when Hyungwon said that he had strippers arranged for the event, and upon realising that Hyungwon catered for the majority and not the minority due to a budgeting issue — _dang you, heterosexuality_ — he had allocated himself to streamer duty instead of ‘inspecting the candidates’.)

“Oh. Oh? You’re talking to me?” Minhyuk asks, his eyes wide from surprise, pointing at his own chest as Kihyun laughs. The dimples at the tips of his cheeks cave in, and so does the last of Minhyuk’s sanity.

“Well. You seem to be the only one around capable of conversation, I think.”

And he’s right — everyone else seems to be focussed on Hyungwon’s Macbook screen at the other side of the room, and his fellow dick-loving Hoseok hyung is nowhere to be found.

“Oh, uh.” Minhyuk blinks, as if the moisture in his eyes helps shed some light on the situation. He is disappointed once again to know that it offers no degree of clarity. And then, remembering the initial greeting — “hey.”

Kihyun laughs, the sound deeper and hoarser from the laugh he used to do during their high school days, but Minhyuk’s memory might be failing him after all, and maybe it’s the same. Maybe he’s the same, and nothing has changed, and he’s ready to arm himself with harsh words again. Minhyuk fends for himself with his bare hands, as it has always been.

“Having fun?” The grey-haired man asks with mild amusement playing in his voice, and Minhyuk chuckles breathlessly. “However much fun you can have putting up streamers like you’re decorating a five-year-old’s party.”

Kihyun makes his way over and starts to pull out a bag of balloons from a box beside him, and Minhyuk feels himself stiffen. He freezes when Kihyun stands so close he can feel his body heat radiating off him in waves, his smaller frame so inviting, smelling of expensive cologne. Minhyuk gulps. He didn’t know what exactly to expect from this trip, but it was most certainly not _this_.

They stand in silence, the pressure in Minhyuk’s chest building up to something potentially fatal, like it might just puncture a hole in him just to release some steam.

“You look good with brown hair,” Kihyun states matter-of-factly as he fishes out an air pump from the box, slotting the mouth of the balloon into the device. Minhyuk glances warily at him, but he’s twenty-three, an adult, and meant to accept compliments gracefully as they come.

So he throws on a shell and smiles, willing Kihyun to not see the grimace hidden behind, and thanks him. “You look pretty good with silver grey hair, too,” Minhyuk points out, and Kihyun reaches for the top of his head instinctively, his eyes curving into crescents as he, too, takes the compliment.

“Thanks. My manager thought it was a good look.”

Minhyuk nods. “They’re not wrong.”

And the brunette knows that he’s being genuine. That Kihyun truly looks stunning, that this isn’t just some sarcastic poke he’s come up with in petty revenge. Kihyun never fails to look amazing to him, much to his dismay, and while it had only contributed to how smitten he was in the past, it now only feels like another piece of weaponry Kihyun has kept behind his back.

Minhyuk doesn’t know how to feel about that.

“How have you been?”

The taller man hadn’t been expecting a conversation at all, and most certainly not for Kihyun to want to continue said conversation. He almost slips and lets the streamer past his fingers, but he grabs onto it in time.

“Fine.” Freaking out a little, “it’s good.” Then in resignation, “I mean, it’s alright.”

The silver-haired man laughs, again, and Minhyuk decides that he hates it. He hates having to hear his jubilance in person, having to be starkly reminded that this was what they could have had but didn’t end up having, all because Kihyun was being an asshole, and here he is — laughing.

“You sound tired,” Kihyun comments lightly, and Minhyuk can feel his gaze from the corner of his sight, and he caves. He caves, because he _is_ tired, and he doesn’t know how Kihyun manages to know that when they’ve barely exchanged lines or looks.

“A little, yeah,” Minhyuk answers, doesn’t say that it’s because he was tossing and turning in bed the whole of last night, rethinking his moment of weakness in the restaurant, the _what if_ s, and the significance of Kihyun’s existence crossing his again, seven years later.

What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. It only hurts Minhyuk, but that’s not a novel concept.

“What do you do now? You don’t post much on Facebook.” Kihyun pushes the back of the pump, and air gushes into the balloon, inflating it slowly.

Minhyuk shrugs. For someone who enjoys using social media, he doesn’t post as much as they’d expect. He just enjoys keeping tabs on other people’s lives. His own mundane one shouldn’t warrant as much attention.

“I work at an advertising agency as a marketing manager. It’s alright. Can be frustrating at times, but you know, so is every other job.”

The shorter man hums his approval, and Minhyuk doesn’t feel like asking Kihyun what he does, because he _knows_ what he does, because it’s not like he doesn’t tap into Kihyun’s Facebook profile every time one of his posts turns up on his timeline just to make sure that he’s already read all the posts Kihyun has ever posted in all of his time on Facebook.

They could say he’s obsessive, but there’s no one to chide him of his habits and choices, and he supposes it’s just lingering regret at this point. After all, seven years may have passed, but Kihyun is still beautiful and talented, and Minhyuk still likes watching videos of his song covers.

“Difficult clients?”

Minhyuk laughs. “Difficult people, in general.”

Kihyun laughs, again. “I get that.”

And that’s that. They stay in silence, Minhyuk struggling to find the end of the streamer so he can finally drag it across the room and keep the distance between him and Kihyun as far as he can afford, and Kihyun seems to get the hint that Minhyuk is not up for conversation.

He doesn’t draw up an excuse, just presses his lips together as he looks knowingly at the brunette before shifting away towards the men crowded around Hyungwon, balloon pump in hand.

Minhyuk gulps. The remnants of his Jo Malone fragrance diffuses into Minhyuk’s territory, and he shuns away, because it doesn’t only smell expensive, but also smells of Kihyun. Of Kihyun wrapped up in his large hoodie, of Kihyun in his arms, his hair smelling of Minhyuk’s shampoo. Of Kihyun relaxing under his hold, of Kihyun grounding him with his thighs wrapped around his hips.

And it hurts in ways Minhyuk cannot describe, like the hole that was in him being slowly filled up with Kihyun’s existence only to be ripped apart entirely again.

As if answering his prayer, the door to the function room slams open, and Hoseok is looking around curiously.

“Hey Hoseok hyung, come look at some hot chicks!” Jooheon hollers from the other end, and Hyungwon jostles him playfully. “He only likes hot dicks. Shut up, Jooheon.”

They snicker, because it’s funny, because Hoseok hyung has such a big heart and a tiny temper, and it’s amusing to make fun of him and see the way his nose twitches.

“Both of you, shut up!” Hoseok rolls his eyes as he screams out his reply, and Minhyuk returns to staring absentmindedly at the decorative piece in his hands.

The man with blue highlights finds the brunette and his face falls just a little at Minhyuk’s expression. His gaze is vacant, and Hoseok sighs as he approaches.

“Minhyuk?”

He offers a small smile. “Hey, hyung.”

A hand on his shoulder. “You doing alright?”

The brunette considers the question, then nods his head slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so?”

The older man raises a brow. “You think so?”

Minhyuk chews on his lower lip as his hands continue to move. He’s a little startled when he finds the end of the streamer, the long piece of decoration pooling at his feet in a large spiral.

“We —” he frowns, because he still can’t really make out what that whole thing was. “We made small talk?”

“Yeah?” Hoseok looks surprised, and Minhyuk would be too, if he wasn’t so busy being overwhelmed by the smell of his damn cologne.

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s… nice?”

Minhyuk’s smile is a little crooked, and Hoseok can’t help but smile back. “I guess? As nice as nice things go, I suppose.”

Hoseok runs his hand over the back of Minhyuk’s neck and presses tightly, easing a few knots in his muscles as he does. “You’ll be fine, Minhyuk. I’m here, if you need anyone.”

Minhyuk nods, and thinks he might take full advantage of Hoseok’s offer and ask for him more than he really should.

*****

The man of the hour is scheduled to turn up in another twenty minutes. Minhyuk’s palms are sweating, overthinking the few decorations he’s hung up by the ceiling and the probability of them falling on Changkyun’s head as he enters.

Hoseok seems to sense his unease and places a hand on the back of Minhyuk’s large one. He squeezes it tightly, and the brunette feels himself relaxing a little again. He’s never been good with surprises, be it with receiving or giving them.

He really appreciates Hoseok’s presence here at this bachelor party; what he would have done without his hyung being his pillar of support, he wouldn’t have had a single clue.

Hoseok makes jokes and tells him random facts about his life in Seoul, and they promise each other that they should meet more often outside of special occasions like these. Minhyuk really likes Hoseok hyung. He makes him feel loved, protected, cherished. All the things he’s been wanting to feel for the longest time.

But Hoseok hyung is not the person he wants. He wants those feelings, and he treasures them, but not in the way where he’d want to walk with him, hand-in-hand, down an aisle of roses and tulips.

He takes a peek at Kihyun. Ashy grey hair does stand out from the crowd, and there he is, chatting with Hyungwon, the same way they’d been stuck to the hip in high school, teasing each other to no end, endearment weaved within their harsh words. He misses them.

Not Kihyun. Just the environment he was in, where he was surrounded by a group of people who at that moment felt like they would be his closest friends for life. He would see them Mondays to Fridays, and the occasional weekend for games or cramming, and for most days in the week he was occupied.

He had people to talk to, menial conversations to serve as distraction, and just the fact that they could spend all their time being in school wasting their youth away, because they were _supposed to_ do exactly that. It’s something Minhyuk wishes he can have back instead of the empty and dark apartment he returns to every day, only silence welcoming him after a long and stressful eight hours at work.

And look, being an adult comes with its pros and cons, but he wishes he’d at least have kept a close connection with the people who felt like the world to him back then.

When he whispers a ‘thank you’ to Hoseok, the older man stares at him in bewilderment, but he just smiles, and Minhyuk hopes that he never gets to lose him again.

*****

The plan was that Hyungwon, in his capacity as his boss, would say that he was in Jeju for some meeting with a shareholder, and since Changkyun was here at the island, he, too, should join them for dinner.

Needless to say, Hyungwon got his entire ear chewed off by Changkyun who insisted that this was exactly five days before his wedding and that _I’m on leave and really shouldn’t be dealing with your shit right now_.

But of course Hyungwon’s plan doesn’t end there. He’s sponsored fully for Changkyun’s fiancée’s bachelorette party in secret, and Changkyun was mildly surprised at how eager she had been to get him out of the holiday villa they were staying in.

So he begrudgingly agrees to attend this ‘stupid meeting’, and despite all that he’s said, he still puts on his best attire and turns up to the function venue.

And that’s how it has all fallen in place, with deafening horns being blown and party poppers being pulled, and Changkyun looking like he’s ascended into a different dimension altogether.

When he finally comes around to everyone screaming “SURPRISE!” at the top of their lungs, and realising that everyone in the room owns a penis, realisation sinks in quick.

“Oh God.” Minhyuk can see him deflate into his small frame as he relaxes, and the frown between his brows evens out immediately. Hyungwon is laughing as he walks towards him with open arms, and the younger man falls into them immediately.

“What the hell, hyung?”

The pink-haired man shrugs, and with the widest grin on his face, tilts his head to the side. “Surprise, I guess?”

Changkyun rolls his eyes, and punches Hyungwon lightly on his chest, but he can barely keep the ends of his lips from pulling up. “Ugh, you’re so annoying… I guess I love you or something like that.”

Hyungwon cooes at him as if he would a child, and Changkyun swats at his arm, irritated, but as his friends all come towards him to give him their congratulations (and condolences, because _marriage is the graveyard of romance_ , a distasteful joke that Minhyuk irks), he takes them all welcomingly, like the adult he is.

That has always been Changkyun’s role in their group of friends. He may be the youngest, but in him lies a certain degree of maturity, to give biting factual remarks in an attempt to encourage his hyungs to get their shit together, but also act as the cohering substance between them, like a very sticky piece of gum.

Why, the only reason why Minhyuk is able to see any of his old friends now is thanks to Changkyun. Again.

Minhyuk plays with his fingers and tries to relax as Changkyun walks around hugging his friends and laughing at their playful jabs.

When he finally reaches Minhyuk, the brunette realises that Changkyun looks like a mess. Despite his smart attire, he has deep, heavy bags under his eyes. Apparently wedding planning is the modern Dementor, because Changkyun appears to have his entire soul sucked out, and Minhyuk can’t even begin to sugarcoat his words.

“Minhyuk hyung!” At least there is still elation to his tone, and the older boy reaches over to pull his precious friend into his arms.

“Changkyunnie. God, look at you!” he exclaims, giving the man three tight claps on his back, ignoring his mock coughs on his shoulder.

“I know. Terrible.” He pulls away and frowns, his eyes downcast as he pretends to be in absolute agony, and Minhyuk chuckles. “You do look a little tired,” he admits, and the youngest shakes his head.

“There’s no need to console me, hyung. I know what I look like.”

“Handsome. As you’ve always been.”

Changkyun’s expression quickly morphs into a scandalous one. “Hyung! I’m taken, you know?”

Minhyuk guffaws, throwing his head back. Changkyun is still impossible.

“Who said you were my cup of tea?” he sneers, and the black-haired man places a hand on his chest, looking utterly appalled.

They hug again, because Minhyuk feels like it, like a little voice in his brain telling him that he needs this physical touch, so he leans in, and Changkyun falls into place easily.

“You doing alright? I know it’s probably been hard on you.” Changkyun’s voice is small, thoughtful, and Minhyuk doesn’t know why the pity makes his heart break. Normally it fractures his pride, but today he thinks he’s in the mood to wallow.

“Not easy,” he relents simply, and Changkyun nods, chin digging into Minhyuk’s shoulder. A soft hand on the back of his head, he pats the older man gently. “You’re doing so well. Just until after the wedding, okay? Now just be happy for me.”

And when the younger man steps out of the embrace, Minhyuk feels fresh tears in his eyes. But he won’t cry. He’s just emotional, the same kind of emotional he feels when he thinks he doesn’t deserve someone like Hoseok.

He’s reminded himself multiple times throughout this trip that the focus was Changkyun, yet the sheer blink of Kihyun’s eyes, a whiff of his cologne, the witness to his laughter and dimples caving at the tips of his cheeks was enough to make Minhyuk prioritise his self-victimising again.

 _No_ , he tells himself as Changkyun looks at him sadly, the ends of his lips pulling down, _I’m not going to feel sorry for myself anymore_.

And perhaps it is in all of their interests, because Changkyun visibly relaxes, and he feels the weight of his shoulder pushed aside for a bit. He allows himself to wholeheartedly feel happy for Changkyun, because this is what Changkyun deserves, and matters dating seven years back really shouldn’t warrant such strong emotions anyway.

*****

The strippers have made their entrance and this is perhaps the most number of boobs Minhyuk has ever allowed himself to see in person.

It’s a sight in and of itself, but Changkyun’s face lights up as the beautiful ladies strut around the room scantily dressed, their legs longer than Minhyuk’s life expectancy. He chuckles, and Hoseok just observes with barely any interest, just amused at how fired up the guys all seem to be.

He and Minhyuk sit back and relax, left leg crossed over the right, and look upon them like old people smiling wistfully at the ferocity of young blood. “Jooheon’s eyes are going to pop out of their sockets,” Hoseok comments casually, and Minhyuk chuckles.

Hyungwon is hesitantly sliding money bills on the table only for Jooheon to pick it up, fold it, and wedge it under one of the girl’s bra. Minhyuk shakes his head, but the ends of his lips are still pulled up slightly. Changkyun seems a bit reserved, but he looks like he’s having fun.

Hoseok inches a little closer to Minhyuk, so close the younger man can feel his body temperature radiating off him in waves. “So.” Hoseok speaks up a little above the thumping beat of EDM fused with long waxy saxophone tunes reverberating in the room. “Do you want to talk about it?”

The brunette whips his head sideways to look at him. “About?”

“Your chat with Kihyun.” Frowning, Hoseok picks up a bottle of beer by the neck and takes a large swig.  

Minhyuk shrugs, shrinks back into the sofa, observes as the other boys make annoying whooping sounds. “Nothing much to talk about. We just… chewed the fat.”

Hoseok blinks a couple of times to make sure he’s hearing this right. “Okay. And you’re okay with that?”

“You make it sound like I can’t do anything around him,” he laughs breathily, mildly frustrated, and Hoseok sits back up straight.

“Minhyuk. I cannot count the number of times you’ve cried and had panic attacks _because_ of this one man. You can’t possibly blame me for thinking that you’re affected.”

Minhyuk turns silent. Sometimes establishing long-term relationships and being so close to someone has the tables turned on him. Half a beat later, “I’m fine. I had an epiphany. When I was hugging Changkyun just now.”

Hoseok doesn’t look convinced, but listens, because he’s a good friend.

“This is his wedding. It’s about him and his soon-to-be wife. Not about me and mental breakdowns over a boy who threw me away seven years ago.”

The older man narrows his eyes. “A mental breakdown is hardly something you can help.”

“No, but if I can invest my time and thoughts into something more useful. You know, focus on the important things instead?”

Hoseok glances at him for a long moment, but doesn’t say much. A large boulder hangs between them precariously, neither of them ready to face an influx of emotions, not when everyone has huge smiles hung on their faces, and the music makes him want to dance.

“If you’re sure.” Hoseok pauses. “What about when we’re back in Seoul?”

Minhyuk chuckles. “We’ll cross that bridge when we reach it, yeah?”

His blue highlights seem to glimmer in the dim-lit room, disco lights casting spots on the ground, on the wall, on Minhyuk’s neutral expression. Hoseok lets out a loud sigh that seems to have built up over the past few days, and Minhyuk feels guilt mincing his insides.

“Hey, let’s dance!” Hoseok cheers, getting up on his feet and throwing his arms in the air, shimmying his hips, and Minhyuk can hardly say no.

So he doesn’t, and lets Hoseok pick up his hand as he grinds playfully against Minhyuk’s front, giggling as Minhyuk returns the favour, digging his hip bone into his hyung’s side. Minhyuk drinks some more, coaxed by Hoseok to, and forgets about that conversation with Kihyun.

Forgets his intoxicating smell wafting around him in circles.

Forgets that his heart is barely put together by some very flimsy tape, and that if he was allowed to be more sober or delirious, he’d find himself back to square one again.

But alcohol is good, thrumming soft mellow beats in his bloodstream and making the lights glisten intensely, and he throws his head back in a wild craze, laughter escaping him endlessly.

*****

Alcohol is positively and most definitely _not good_. Minhyuk is not really in a state to make critical judgements, but he’s retching over a toilet and the back of his throat is parched, so it’s safe to say that alcohol is actually the worst.

He dry vomits into the bowl again, his reflection in the pool mocking him.

A drunk Minhyuk is a weak Minhyuk. He lets his inhibitions down and allows everything to come crashing like an avalanche. There’s nothing to hide or stop the destruction, and the huge pressure on his chest makes him breathless.

All conversation about focusing on the important things (namely, Changkyun’s wedding) seem so fleeting now. Like wind brushing past his ears.

Who was he kidding? Drunk Minhyuk wades through the murky waters of his memories with Kihyun, lets the boulders tied at his ankles keep him drowned.

Perhaps it would have been possible if he were sober, but right now he’s obliterated from the amount of alcohol in his system, and he can’t do much but wallow.

Hoseok is by his side, rubbing his warm hand into the small of his back, and then over the expanse of his back. The lights seem to flicker in the bathroom, as do Hoseok’s eyes.

His voice is gentle. Caring. He thinks if it wasn’t for the fact that Hoseok had a boyfriend, he would be signing himself up for a lot of trouble tonight. And potentially tomorrow morning, if he was truly allowed to do anything he wanted.

But that’s not the kind of relationship they have. Hoseok is not who he wants.

“Are you okay? Do you want some water? What else do you want —”

His brain short-circuits. “Kihyun.”

The name rings loud and clear amidst the fuzziness of his drunken stupor, but Hoseok has to strain to hear it again.

“Huh?”

“Kihyun. I want Kihyun.”

Hoseok’s eyelids flutter in panic. “Minhyuk. You don’t mean that.” Looks around furtively, as if Kihyun is just around the corner waiting to pounce on them.

And he breaks. Minhyuk falls apart like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle forced at their edges to fit, and he starts to wail, like there’s been a hole punctured in his chest, and it hurts.

“Kihyun.” He makes grabby hands, but there are no tears, just his endless deafening cries. “I want Kihyun.”

“Minhyuk —”

“I want him in ways you could never imagine, hyung.”

Hoseok thinks he really sees Minhyuk now, in the haze of seven vodka shots, countless cocktails, and an impending hangover. “Yet I was anything but what he needed.”

“Minhyuk. You know that’s not true.”

The younger man clenches his fists beside him, his jaw tightening. “Don’t tell me what’s true or what’s not. You don’t know that. _I_ don’t even fucking know that. He told me he loved me. Was _that_ true?” It spills; he’s been holding it in for years, a pipe building up in pressure, for one, two, three, seven years, and filling Minhyuk to the brim, until he can’t breathe, until he can’t see, until he can’t function without thoughts of Kihyun swimming in his mind.

“Minhyuk. You’re just saying things now. You’ll be fine tomorrow morning.”

The waterworks come, leaking from the edges of his eyes, down his sallow cheeks, dripping off his chin. “It’s not fine, hyung, it was never fine. I want Kihyun. I want him so much it hurts, and you know what hurts more?” He gasps, struggling to breathe, struggling to catch his own sanity. It taunts him, spiralling in circles at his bound feet, sounds echoing in his head sounding suspiciously like Kihyun’s name.

“The fact that he doesn’t want me like I want him.” There is a low squeak under his breath and he erupts into more violent sobs, his hands shaking, his senses leaving him. Hoseok doesn’t know what to do.

So he holds Minhyuk, providing physical support, because that’s the best he can offer right now, and Minhyuk falls right into his wide chest, bawling his eyes out, letting out a screech that must hurt his throat even more.

Hoseok pats him on the back softly, long, quiet strokes, and he shushes him as if he were a child that needs to be cooed at. Hoseok thinks he’s not that far off, anyway. Despite the passing of time and life forcing them into the dull moulds of adulthood, Minhyuk always had an air of childlike enthusiasm around him.

He was restless, always bouncing at the balls of his feet, always fidgeting and excited about _something_. Sure, adulthood and the pain of losing his first love doused a lot of his excitement for life, but Minhyuk was Minhyuk, and he was a child at heart, no matter what anyone else says.

Perhaps it’s the reason why Hoseok is so protective of him. It aches, aches at the fact that someone who was like a brother to him had gone ahead to hurt someone who was like a brother to him, too.

But he supposes the amount of aching he does could never be compared to what Minhyuk goes through. He’s allowed himself to slip twice on this trip, and Hoseok hates to think of how many more times he will.

But for now, he squeezes Minhyuk’s nape and lets him shatter in his hold, and only hopes for the dawn to piece whatever that’s left of him back up again.

*****

Daylight comes slowly for Kihyun, creeping along, counting the centimetres it spans over the floor of the room.

Jeju is a beautiful place as he’s been made to see multiple times. The man shuffling next to him in bed lets out a groan, stretching out his arms. Kihyun can’t help but laugh.

Cracking an eye open, he smiles sleepily, fatigue drawn over his features in lines, like a web, clinging. “Good morning, you.”

Kihyun smiles. “Morning. Looks like you slept well.”

The man laughs. “I was a little spent last night, courtesy of yourself.” He jokes, rolling on his side to put his arm around Kihyun’s slim waist. The smaller man doesn’t comment on it, but he doesn’t pull away either.

The lack of a rejection seems to please the man as he snuggles closer to the grey-haired man’s naked hipbone, nosing at it with a small sound of approval.

They stay like this for minutes, the man almost lulling himself back into sleep as Kihyun sits, not moving, as if deep in thought. It takes the start of a snore for Kihyun to jerk himself out of his head, and the man’s eyelids fly open at Kihyun’s sudden movement.

“I should go.”

The words are clipped but not rude, and it was clear that it wasn’t a suggestion but a statement. The man knows when to coddle but also when to let go, and he doesn’t stop himself from laying a small kiss on Kihyun’s hip, satisfied when he shivers involuntarily.

“You won’t stay?” he asks for the sake of it, because he knows what the answer is, as is what it had always been all the other times.

“Nah. I have something on.”

The man laughs. He’s used to going to Kihyun when he has errands to run in Seoul, and it’s the first time he’s let the man into his residence in Jeju. There’s not much he’s doing on this island to ‘have something on’, but it doesn’t matter what he knows.

It only matters what Kihyun wants. What Kihyun wants, he does.

“Not even for breakfast? I know a place that makes amazing lattes.”

At that, Kihyun chuckles. He doesn’t need to know that Kihyun drinks his coffees black. Not surprising, considering Kihyun never did sit down to have a coffee with him. Not before they fucked, and most certainly not after.

It wasn’t the kind of courtship you’d find going on coffee dates. It was purely the satiation of need, the mutual act of charity, the filling of that which desires to be filled.

Nothing more.

“Think I’ll pass.” By this stage he’s already pulling his pants up his pale legs, and after a beat of hesitation, he turns back around to face the man, still completely naked, a kind of blankness in his expression.

“Thank you. For welcoming me into your place.”

“You didn’t even have the house tour,” he teases, and Kihyun throws his head back.

“Had a proper good look and feel of the important stuff. The rest is just dust,” he comments, giving the man a small wink and doesn’t miss the look of surprise on his face.

“Be good, okay?” Leaning in, he kisses him chastely on the lips, briefly, like a feather’s touch, and the man beams.

When he leaves the huge house, Kihyun doesn’t know why the bottom of his stomach feels so empty. Normally a good session would make him all chirpy and sated, and yesterday was most certainly a good session. He puts it onto his lack of a morning meal. Despite the fact that most of his tension was unloaded last night in the mansion, Kihyun still rolls the knots in his shoulders and breathes out a sigh.

At least he didn’t make the bad habit of leaving his heart behind. God knows how it ended the last time that happened.

Well, God, and him, and Minhyuk.

Maybe that answers for his emptiness, though Kihyun is still convinced it’s the absence of breakfast.

*****

When Minhyuk goes downstairs to the hotel restaurant, Hoseok is already there, his ribbed tee completely drenched in sweat, Hyunwoo sitting next to him in a similar state of being.

“Looks like someone had a rough night,” Hyunwoo comments simply, slicing away at a piece of bacon, and Hoseok is looking at him cautiously.

“I’ve got a fucking hangover,” he whines lowly, already wanting to tune Hyunwoo’s volume down by another notch. He reaches for Hyunwoo’s cup of coffee instinctively, mildly satisfied that it isn’t black and cold, like the sensation flowing through his brain languidly like treacle.

He takes the largest gulp out of it, nods absentmindedly when Hoseok asks if he’s taken the aspirin he’s left out for him.

“You wouldn’t be the only one,” Hyunwoo says cryptically, and then Minhyuk realises that there are three other men next to him. He jumps, letting out a shriek, and subsequently cringing at himself for producing that sound. His three friends mirror the frown.

“What the fuck. All of you creeping around silently. Some warning would be nice.”

Hyungwon, Jooheon and Changkyun have fallen into a heap, like a small pile of scattered Domino tiles against each other. Hyungwon waves a lazy arm, wincing as he does.

“Stop talking,” he scolds, barely above a whisper, and Minhyuk agrees that it’s too much effort, so he shifts his seat over and drops the weight of his whole head on Jooheon’s shoulder, the younger man grunting but not complaining.

The two oldest men shake their heads at their younger friends, exchanging amused looks as they continue digging into their breakfast, happy with watching the four musketeers snooze around the dining table.

His eyes are bleary the next time he hears anyone speak. His eyelids are heavy, so he closes his eyes again and keeps them there. It sounds like Hyunwoo.

“…can understand that Changkyun is stressed and really needed to relax…”

Hoseok’s voice, smaller than a mosquito’s.

“…Minhyuk… going through a lot…”

“Kihyun…? Still? After all these years?” He sounds incredulous.

The reply is instantaneous, but comes with a sigh. “Yeah.”

The answer pricked, but Hoseok wasn’t wrong. He just hated how quickly he had replied, and how glaring the truth was.

Jooheon’s shoulder is cushy, so he sinks further into it, allowing sleep to consume him whole.  

*****

After an excruciating hangover and all of them promising _never again_ (a promise that Hoseok just scoffs at; they’d be doing pre-drinks the next time he lets any of them out of his sight again, _that much_ he promises), they seem to get back on schedule.

They see little of Changkyun, which is to be expected of the man who is getting married in four — now three — days. But they have fun within their little group, regardless. They go to the beach, feast on seafood, ride on big trucks with wheels rolling across the sand, cheering as they let the wind run through their locks.

Minhyuk should feel more uneasy around Kihyun, but it’s as if the little casual talk they had at the party helped break some of the ice, and they remain polite to each other.

A little too polite, if Minhyuk were to be honest, but let’s face it, they’re no longer what they meant to each other back then.

Now they’re a little more than acquaintances, but a little less than friends. And Minhyuk can deal with this balancing act.

It helps create distance, and distance from Kihyun is most possibly the best thing he could ever ask for now.

*****

The wedding is so close now. Minhyuk thinks he can mark off the little ticks in Changkyun’s face, the muscle tensing when he thinks about the date closing in.

They’re kicked back, relaxed, and Changkyun is on a strict no-alcohol policy. After all, a replay of how shit-faced they got just a few days ago is not what he really wants the night before his big day.

There are ants dancing in his limbs as Kihyun talks about a recent gig, and Hyungwon reacts to his statements with a lukewarm response. Something seems to have cropped up at work, and he’s buried into his phone screen.

Minhyuk’s had one Long Island tea, so there is a quiet buzzing in his system that makes him silent, Changkyun in the armchair next to him.

An arm slithers its way to his wrist, and Minhyuk blinks again to see Changkyun’s fingers snaking over. He grabs at it immediately.

“Hey,” he greets lazily, realising that he’s barely even spoken to Changkyun today. There are bags beneath his eyes, dragging him down into what seems to be endless fatigue.

“Hyung.” He braces a tight smile that has Minhyuk sitting back up straight. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

Concern traces his words in a swish, the languid kind that makes his head swim.

“I’m… nervous.” Changkyun exhales in a tiny ‘heh’, Minhyuk’s chest squeezing the same way Changkyun does around his fingers.

“About the wedding?” Minhyuk asks, keeping his voice down, the loud hollers of Jooheon and Hyunwoo in the other room playing a soccer video game thrown over them like a blanket.

“Yeah.”

“And what about it specifically?”

Changkyun tucks his knees beneath his chin and stuffs himself into a small parcel of being, fingers still over Minhyuk’s in a semi-tight grip.

“I wonder if it’s a mistake.”

Minhyuk blinks, the left eye before the right, and lets Changkyun speak.

“Just, you know, ‘till death do us part’ sounds terrifying.” Then, in a breath ghosting over the both of them, “what if I fall out of love with her before death does us part?”

The question strikes a dull ache in Minhyuk’s chest. He glances at Changkyun who has his brows knitted together, worry clouding his expression. Changkyun is only 24 — Minhyuk supposes it’s natural to feel uneasy about the future when you have so much of it laid in front of you. He breathes in deeply before he speaks, all the while wondering if these are the right words to put his friend’s mind at ease.

“Changkyun. We can’t live life thinking of what might happen twenty years down the road. What’s important is now. Do you love her? Now, in this moment?”

Minhyuk stiffens, his own enquiry bringing a prick to his guts, but Changkyun seems to relax, an exhale leaving his lips.

And then there are sparkles in Changkyun’s eyes, lighting up his entire face with their luminescence. “God. More than anything and anyone else in the world.”

The smile that surfaces on Minhyuk’s face almost tears his face apart, but in a good way, and he pats the back of Changkyun’s hand gently. “Then that’s all that matters.”

Changkyun’s shoulders sag as Minhyuk offers him a short nod, and his face spreads into a warm and consoled smile. Minhyuk’s hands are warm, the heat encircling his entire chest area.

“Thanks hyung.” Changkyun’s voice is a raspy mutter, and Minhyuk only squeezes his hand tighter.

His gaze travels a little further to Kihyun seated next to Hyungwon, his silver grey hair eye-catching. Hyungwon seems to have resolved some of his work problems and is actively having a conversation instead of giving patronising ‘mmm’s and ‘aah’s.

For the first time in a week, Minhyuk feels lighter. Maybe it’s the density of his words to Changkyun that have taken away the bulk of the weight in him, maybe it’s Minhyuk finally taking his own advice and focusing more on the important things.

Or maybe as he observes Kihyun’s dimples denting into his cheeks, his eyes turning into crescents, he admits several things to himself.

That despite seven years, Kihyun is still gorgeous and makes his nerves tingle with an excitement whenever he sees him. That despite seven years, the hurt of his departure and harsh words continues to linger in his system.

Minhyuk doesn’t deny — has never denied — that he loved Kihyun. A little too much in too short a period of time, but he did, and though love is fleeting, if it was beautiful in its transience, then maybe it’s worth the pain after all.

*****

The wedding is beautiful. Changkyun waits at the end of the aisle for his bride, kneading his hands in trepidation, and then his eyes turn the softest shade of brown when she appears behind her veil, her steps small yet eager. Minhyuk has to try his best to not cry.

Hoseok doesn’t own the same amount of perseverance, and he cries the moment the wedding march starts to play, Minhyuk rubbing his thumb into his shoulder.

For someone this bulky, Hoseok hyung sure looks like he’s made up of water.

Changkyun would have laughed if he’d seen Hoseok being a slobbery mess, but thankfully for all of them, Changkyun only has eyes for his bride, like he’s ready to pluck the stars for her if only she asked.

Minhyuk remembers a time where he thinks he would do that, too, for a certain boy with pink constantly dusting his cheeks, his fringe plastered to his forehead, his laughter a symphony of sweet tinkling sounds.

He wonders if this is what he looked like seven years ago. It’s like looking at a mirror now. (He wonders if Kihyun is thinking about how Changkyun is wearing the same look Minhyuk wore for him almost a decade ago.)

Changkyun has prepared his own vows, fidgeting from side to side as he pulls his script out from his pocket. His hands are trembling along with his lips. She looks up at him gently, reaching out to put her hand on his.

“Hey,” Minhyuk lip-reads, “it’s okay.”

Changkyun exchanges gazes with her, and she stares at him so deeply he thinks she could look into his soul. He knows, even if he messes up this speech, his vows, this wedding, that the most important bit — their future — would still be there. She would still be in his arms, lying in the bed next to him, kissing him goodnight. Every day, for as long as they want, or till death does them part.

And Minhyuk hyung’s right.

That’s all that matters.

*****

Hoseok hyung takes his first dance of the night. They shuffle uneasily across the dancefloor, neither of them really knowing what they’re doing, but they’re having fun, and Hoseok hyung is dazzling. He’s always been, the centre of attention even without trying.

Minhyuk lets him spin him around, chuckles when they bump into each other, cackles when he accidentally steps on his foot, Hoseok hyung jumping around single-leggedly as if in an intense game of _daksaum_.

Hoseok relents, claiming that this dance has resulted in one too many casualties, lets Minhyuk roll his eyes while fussing over his feet. (“Hyung, I swear to God, it’s _not_ broken.”)

They walk (Hoseok fake limps) back to the table, and then not even a minute later, he jumps back up, insisting on getting them some drinks for the night.

Minhyuk doesn’t have the mind to berate him — it is a night for joy, after all — so he lets him, constantly looking out for him as if he were a child.

The brunette scans the ballroom once more, and deciding that there’s nothing interesting going on (other than Changkyun’s new and intoxicated father-in-law giving him a breakdown of what he’ll do to him if he ever dares to hurt his little girl), pulls out his phone.

Just as he’s about to click into a game, there is a shadow hovering over him, blocking out all the light. Minhyuk grows a little annoyed, even though the whole point of a party slash dinner is to socialise.

He’s just not in the mood right now.

But the shadow starts to speak, his voice smooth and familiar, and Minhyuk’s heart jumps.

“May I?”

Minhyuk lifts his gaze and there he is, stunning hazel eyes boring a hole into his face, his grey fringe slicked back, his suit well-fit and ashy to match his hair.

“Sorry?” he frowns, heart rising to float around in his throat, because Kihyun is standing there emitting his expensive cologne in strong waves, his palm faced upwards, extended towards Minhyuk.

“May I? Have this next dance?” It’s gentle, tenor-toned, like honey glazing over Minhyuk’s senses, and he shivers in his seat. No sign of impatience on Kihyun’s face, or the slightest desire to change his mind, his arm remains outstretched, the invitation thrown wide open.

“M-me?”

Kihyun has the nerve to laugh, to throw back his head in a fit of laughter, attacking Minhyuk’s visage with his edged jawline.

“Don’t see anyone else here.”

He spins around, and true enough, Hoseok hyung isn’t back yet. He squints and catches a glimpse of Hoseok in the sea of humans (he’s not that hard to miss) who has started to dance with — or being taught by, Minhyuk can’t tell — Jooheon in what seems to be a waltz.

“I can’t help but think you just wait for everyone to be gone before you approach me.”

Kihyun cocks up his brows, amusement trickling in his voice. “What can I say? The ones that have fallen away from the pack are the most vulnerable.”

“And then what, you capitalise on my vulnerability?” Minhyuk asks, seemingly taunting, but he doesn’t really realise the thorn beneath his words until he actually utters them. A thorn that has somehow pricked Kihyun where it hurts, and the smile on his face dissipates.

“Oh. Uh —” He falters for two seconds.

Minhyuk lets out a conceited huff, shaking his head. It’s somewhat comforting to know that he has the ability to ruffle Kihyun’s feathers the same way the grey-haired man does to him. “Why, I thought you wanted to dance?”

The arm that was outstretched wavers by a little before going firm again. “I thought you didn’t want to.”

“Didn’t say that.” Minhyuk plops his large hand into Kihyun’s small one, trying to not focus on his body heat and the numerous times they’ve lied in Kihyun’s bed, Minhyuk tracing the lines running across his palm, putting them to memory.

He stands up, half a head taller than the grey-haired man, and it’s the second time they’ve stood at such close proximity. This time, Minhyuk refuses to let his scent fog up his mind. This time he lets go of his resentment, his hurt, and just takes Kihyun for who he is.

Just Yoo Kihyun. Photographer slash cover vocal artist Yoo Kihyun who almost trips over his own feet as he leads Minhyuk to the dance floor.

The unkind chuckle goes unconcealed, and Kihyun positively glowers.

“You’re still clumsy as usual, huh?”

Minhyuk is naive to think he could take Kihyun only for who he is today. Everything he knows and understands about the man is built on their past, a past that he is hardly willing to reminisce, but a past that doesn’t care for boundaries and trespasses into his conscious mind regardless.

If Kihyun seemed bothered, he didn’t let it show.

“Yeah. Guess so,” is all he answers with a shrug, tugging softly on Minhyuk’s hand as they brave through the crowd, until Kihyun finds a relatively empty spot and settles, and Minhyuk drifts and drifts until he anchors where Kihyun is.

And when they do finalise on a location, they fall into place. Wordlessly, Kihyun and Minhyuk land into their respective positions. None of that clambering around like with him and Hoseok, struggling to decide who is to take the lead.

Kihyun places an affirmative palm on Minhyuk’s hip, guiding it as it moves from side to side, and Minhyuk rests his hands on Kihyun’s shoulder, resisting the urge to loop his arms around his neck and pull him in.

They’re quiet, the silence neither pressurising nor awkward. Some degree of tranquility seeps in between them and this feels… normal. Like they’re here where they’ve always meant to be, swaying slowly to the tunes playing through the large speakers.

Kihyun is the first to speak up.

“How — how have you been?” Laced with hesitation, Kihyun’s voice even quivers slightly.

Minhyuk doesn’t hold back the chuckle. “Pleasantries, Kihyun? I thought we were past that since that conversation we had in the function room.”

For a person that spends most of his time making up scenarios and possible negative outcomes in his head, he finds some unfounded courage as he speaks to Kihyun.

As it appears, he might actually be healing and on the way to forgetting about Kihyun.

Kihyun seems embarrassed. Like he’s ashamed of himself, and Minhyuk knows exactly which bits of his skin twitches when he feels a certain way. He doesn’t point it out.

“I was a little… apprehensive. You know, considering our… history?”

“ _That’s_ one way to put it.”

Kihyun falls silent.

“Surely it must be okay now, right? After what, six years?’

Minhyuk lets a moment past them in a flurry. “Seven,” he corrects lightly, and Kihyun keeps his eyes on his shoes. Of course he knows exactly how many years it’s been.

“And yeah,” Minhyuk answers goodnaturedly, because he doesn’t need or want to put up a fight, not here, not when Kihyun’s hand is leaving a burn mark on his skin, and the sting makes him hiss in what can only be desire, “it’s okay.”

He sees him. He sees the little dip in his mood when he says that in his best nonchalant tone, marks the start of his downers, because unsurprisingly, Minhyuk is still very much the same person he was all those years ago, and Kihyun knows him just as well as he does Kihyun.

“Is it, really?”

His eyes flicker to Kihyun’s face, to the mole above his lip, to the tip of his sharp nose, and he laughs before returning to his neutral expression. Kihyun isn’t looking at him, which is good for them both.  

Silly Minhyuk. Thinking he could fool Kihyun. Kihyun, of all people.

“Yeah. Maybe not.” He sounds so bitter when he says it, and he knows Kihyun can hear it too.

A pause. “What were you thinking of, when I first approached you during the party prep?”

Minhyuk doesn’t understand the influx of questions; why does Kihyun even care?

But he’s a people-pleaser, so he answers them anyway.

“Me?” Sour. “I was terrified,” Minhyuk confesses, and he can feel his own lips pull up into a smile he doesn’t know is pained or amused.

“Of?” Kihyun looks small, unassuming, definitely not one to instill fear in anyone.

“Talking to you. Meeting you again was…” he blinks, “unexpected.”

Kihyun hums a general approval. He doesn’t say anything, and Minhyuk is thankful for the lack of reaction.

“So, your career has taken off, I assume?” Minhyuk asks, desperate for a change in mood, and Kihyun seems to lighten up at the mention of anything but them.

“Well. Depends on how you see it, I guess. I get a few singing gigs at local pubs, photography requests for weddings and events and whatnot. I’ve kept myself busy.”

Minhyuk grins. He truly is happy for him, though. He doesn’t have the heart to wish ill upon anyone, and most certainly not Kihyun.

“That’s good.” Hesitating, Minhyuk decides to speak his mind anyway. “I’ve enjoyed your song covers. You’ve been doing great.”

The statement seems to come as a shock to Kihyun, whose head tilts up immediately to find Minhyuk staring down at him intensely. He clears his throat.

“You’ve been watching my content?”

Minhyuk smiles. “For as long as I can remember.” He sniffs. “You were the one who won every year of our high school’s singing competition anyway.”

It was their origin story, if you would. The thing that brought them together, the pitting against each other until it became a cohesive instead of a divider.

The next question comes a little delayed. “Why?” is all Kihyun asks, and Minhyuk looks at him sadly.

“What do you mean ‘why’?”

“Why are you still keeping updates on me after I —”

He censors himself, and he doesn’t know if it’s to save his own face or to have mercy on Minhyuk.

The chuckle that comes is cold but not malicious. “You’re a good singer, regardless.” A long pause that freezes over their well-coordinated steps back and forth. “And I guess some delusional part of me still thought of us as friends. And you check up on your friends, even if you don’t talk anymore.”

This seems to really take Kihyun by surprise, so much as that he stops dancing entirely, his eyes blown wide, just taking in Minhyuk’s sallow face and woe etched in the tiniest crevices.

They stay unmoving, Minhyuk’s hands still on his shoulders, Kihyun’s hands still on his hips. The world around them seems to flow by smoothly without a single hitch, uncaring if they remained rooted to the ground forever.

“Of course we’re friends, I just wasn’t sure how much you wanted to stay as friends after what happened.”

 _Not much_ , Minhyuk wants to say, especially not after Kihyun had exploited him and laid his most naked weaknesses bare, discrediting everything he was and what he believed in.

He knows now, seven years later, that people say things out of pique, as he’s been one to act rashly in times of temperament himself. But it doesn’t mean those arrows didn’t leave the ugliest of scars.

But Minhyuk has always marvelled at the greatest of wonders, and he hated that Kihyun was one of them. In spite of the scars, Kihyun existed solely as Kihyun, and that in itself was more than enough to make Minhyuk the little moon in his orbit. Thrown into its path, over and over again, as if it wouldn’t tire.

But Minhyuk is human, and humans tire, and he’s tired of constantly falling into and over Kihyun, even though his heart doesn’t offer him much of a choice.

He shrugs. “Yeah. I wasn’t so sure myself.” He wears his best nonchalant expression, and Kihyun can stuff himself if he’s not buying it. “But it’s okay. It’s just what it is, yeah?”

The silver-haired man feels a strong erupting in his chest, like it’s forcing words to leave his lips, like he’s finally going to explain for the things he’s said all those years ago.

But nothing escapes him. Seven years, and he’s not gathered enough courage to apologise for acting out the way he did. Didn’t know how to say that he was a young boy incapable of being generous with his feelings, that Minhyuk asking to break up had hurt him, and the only way he knew how to reciprocate was by inflicting damage back onto him.

And that he was sorry, that Minhyuk didn’t deserve all that, that it _shouldn’t_ be “just what it is”. He should have faced up to their problems and resolved them instead of running away. He was lonely in a foreign country, that was a fact, and he missed Minhyuk so much, desperately wanted him to be around him so badly that he pushed him away.

He wished he could come up with a more logical explanation for the things he did and said.

He could say that it was his defense mechanism that came into play the minute he realised Minhyuk, just like everyone else, was tired of his bullshit. Of his selfishness, his stubbornness, his pragmatism. And the guilt that gnawed at him when Minhyuk broke into tears in his bedroom never dissipated.

All that pressure has got to go somewhere, and Kihyun knows from those years of solitude only to push someone away. He’s never been good with building rapport or relationships, and his friendship with Hyungwon was something of a demand and supply, only growing into sincerity after a long, long time.

He has all these excuses and sorrys built up, a small simmering lying just under his belly, and he wants so eagerly to put them into words and finally, as belated as it may be, pass them on to Minhyuk.

But he can’t.

When Minhyuk looks down at him with the softest gaze, the same one he’s worn all those years ago, the one that was on Changkyun’s face when his bride walked down the aisle, Kihyun feels his heart give out.

His eyes a smatter of lights, it washes up and then away, and in the recesses they lay. His emotions, his adoration, and then his sadness — bare, wide, grand, like the vastness of the ocean opening up to him, though Kihyun couldn’t find it in himself to open up in the same manner.

He doesn’t know how or why it happens when it happened. Minhyuk took a step forward, inching forward ever so slightly with every movement, as if an invisible thread found itself around his torso and tugged relentlessly until he gave way.

He gravitates around Kihyun. When the lights in the ballroom spin and cast their glaring and unforgiving glare on Kihyun, it dips and peaks and Minhyuk can see the little craters in his otherwise unblemished skin. The light seems to run through his skin like a steady stream, and when Kihyun blinks he creates ripples spreading out towards Minhyuk.

His face betrays no emotions.

Minhyuk doesn’t think. He’s spent all this time thinking. Thinking about the what ifs and could have beens, the nasty words he should have thrown back in return, the times he’s fallen into and out of love with Kihyun. He reaches out, the same way Kihyun had just a while ago.

He holds him in his hand.

There is a shaky exhale from Kihyun, laboured breaths coming out in huffs. Minhyuk can feel his fingers bunching up Minhyuk’s dress shirt. His eyelids almost flutter shut, the lines in his face smoothing out, pressed flat. But he seems to resist the idea of becoming too at ease around Minhyuk, as if comfort in his presence was something he needed to evade. He forces his eyes back open.  

Minhyuk cups his face, and there is so much he wants to say. So many stars he would pluck for Kihyun, until the world goes dark, until no one on Earth can see. And it didn’t matter if the lights go out, or if he had to huddle from the cold. Because he’d do anything for Kihyun, anything his heart desired, he’d do it in a heartbeat, and in his eyes he had already borne witness to the most stunning of stars.

The pad of his thumb caves into Kihyun’s cheek, a curvature so familiar, the flurry of emotions rising to his chest nearly forcing every last bit of breath from his lungs.

Kihyun opens his mouth. Minhyuk is terrified.

“Sorry,” is the word Kihyun says in the tiniest voice, and Minhyuk’s heart clenches. He’s waited more than 2,000 days to hear him say this, yet the moment in which they shared, the one where Minhyuk rubs soothing circles into his cheek, is not the one where it should have appeared.

It feels almost like a mistake. Any other time, Minhyuk would have rode on a new high for finally getting the apology he deserved, but he’s here, thumb almost sliced from the sharpness of his cheekbone, willing a tender moment between them to persist, and Kihyun apologises.

The snort that leaves him breaks the magic, and he pulls away, albeit slowly.

Maybe not so much has changed after all. Kihyun is still terrible at choosing the right time to say the right things. He’d rather he said anything else but his sorrys now.

A sorry in that moment just feels like Minhyuk has poured into him forcefully only for Kihyun to have grabbed Minhyuk by the handle and poured it back out. Poured it all the way to the brim, not caring if it overflowed, not caring if Minhyuk could hold the same amount he could give.

If they shared a moment in that split instant, it broke as quickly as it formed. Minhyuk steps away and puts space between them, missing the way Kihyun fumbles as the fabric of Minhyuk’s shirt leaves his fingers.

Does Kihyun know that his apology had created yet another dent in Minhyuk’s heart? That the prospect of the huge hollowness being filled with only pleasant memories from now on has crumbled again? The light dances in Minhyuk’s eyes, though his feet are reluctant now.

“I think I should go. Enjoy your night, Kihyun.”

One last look at the shorter man, and Minhyuk takes his leave. He should be saying so many things. Should have shoved Kihyun, should have at least given him a dirty look.

But he doesn’t forget the way his heart lurched so hopelessly for Kihyun just a minute ago. Those impossible ideas of wanting to steal the entirety of the galaxy for him. They came tumbling back from just looking into his eyes. Minhyuk needs to get out of his head. It’s stifling in here, locked up with his thoughts and wondering if Kihyun’s lips would feel the same way they did all those years ago.

Silly Minhyuk. He was so ready to stuff those feelings of resentment into a chest and abandon the key for good, if only Kihyun would kiss him, or at least let him.

But he’s only filled with sorrys. And maybe that’s what they’ll always be from here on — a cauldron of harsh words and regret and beautiful moments that lived only in the past.

Maybe with Kihyun and Minhyuk there is never a present, and most certainly does not exist a future.

*****

Fractured. Kihyun returns to his seat and ignores Hyungwon roaring in laughter beside him, clearly having one too many drinks and needing Jooheon to physically restrain him from creating a scene.

The image from before plays in his head a couple of times. He had regretted saying it the minute it left him. Courage gathered in his gut belatedly, somehow only managing to put it together when Minhyuk held him so softly, his eyes blinking unevenly.

It hurt. Hurt in the way that reminded Kihyun of his guilt, fresh and raw, like it had been just yesterday where he’d sliced through Minhyuk without a care in the world, as if the boy hadn’t been the only thing other than his realism that mattered to him in all 18 years of his life.

He was the first tangible object of his affection, something that wasn’t the abstract concept of fulfilling a dream. A living and breathing dream, and Kihyun was so cruel to Minhyuk. Minhyuk, ever so sweet, whose relationship with him started off as some comical rivalry, knew only to care for others.

Perhaps it was why he felt so inclined towards the other boy. Perhaps it was the way he opened up and let Kihyun in so readily, so easily, and would always listen to his stories and complaints with interest and empathy.

Perhaps it was the sparkle in his eyes. In them held the attention Kihyun craved to dominate entirely, and Minhyuk was that person for him.

Because he was so selfish, that even though he knew he was hurting Minhyuk, he didn’t want to let go. He didn’t want to be left alone again, stuck with only Hyungwon, deprived of the love he had searched for for the past 18 years.

And while love sought no returns, relationships worked differently. Relationships were built on the basis of love, put together by the bricks of reciprocation and expectations, and a sprinkle of novelty to top it off.

It’s not enough to just love, and most certainly not to only receive love and never want to give.

But Kihyun was 18. Only 18.

He tells himself that multiple times in various attempts to alleviate his guilt, and then he realises that it doesn’t matter how old he was when he trampled on Minhyuk’s heart.

Because he didn’t think he fully understood what love was at a tender age, and at the age of 25, he realises that he’s none the wiser.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very sorry that nothing actually happens in this chapter except for the fact that Minhyuk is (still) pining for Kihyun  
> That much... is obvious. He's a whipped one, just like all of us. It's like that.  
> Oh, Changkyun got married! That's pretty cool, right? Guess something happened after all.  
> Thank you for still reading! Here's some love for you <3  
> (please. someone. tell me how to stop waffling. why are my chapters so long and so useless. help.)


	3. 03

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Through the help of mild alcohol intoxication, Minhyuk becomes honest with both himself and Kihyun.

It’s not right no matter how much he thinks about it. He had left the dance in a brokenhearted stupor, dazed and hurt, but he doesn’t cry. When he returns to his seat by the table, Hoseok is there with three empty cocktail glasses and a stern look on his face.

“I saw that,” he says quietly, and Minhyuk doesn’t know what to say. So he offers a grunt as he slumps into his chair, picking up a not-so-empty cocktail glass and chugs it in one go.

The older man appears to realise that Minhyuk is not in the mood to talk, so he doesn’t push, merely places a warm hand on his shoulder and squeezes tight.

Minhyuk would like to cry, simply to make the pressure on his chest go away, but he doesn’t have tears to spare. There are too many questions bubbling in him, confusion spread over his consciousness in a thin film.

Changkyun is offering yet another toast, and Minhyuk picks up his dejection and stuffs it into a vodka shot, smashing it once and for all.

*****

The days seem longer. Drearier. The weather mocks him, a large rain cloud hovering over the sky in a threatening rumble. Kihyun has been alone for a while, but never lonely. He’s never felt this amount of solitude, this amount of bareness.

He’s hollow, he realises. The head chef rings the bell for the fourth time, opting to scream his name at this point. Kihyun jolts back to reality and shuffles to the kitchen, picking up the plate of fried chicken and bowing in apology.

“Wakey-wakey, Kihyun,” a fellow international student snickers as he bumps him in the shoulder lightly, and Kihyun can’t bring himself to smile.

Serving the eager customer with a grimace, he takes his place back by dish drying duty, far from interaction, far from being acutely aware of his own loneliness in the sea of hungry humans.

It never rains but it pours. When Kihyun ends his shift on a low note, he lets his colleagues wave goodbye at him without providing a response.

He’s so tired. His entire body feels like lead, weighing him down, keeping him under the torrential rain, moisture sticking to every last bit of his skin. He’s been tired for so long, and he knows he’s returning to Seoul in just a few weeks. It’s so close now.

Only now there’s nothing for him to look forward to, and Kihyun blames only himself.

*****

It’s nice to see someone familiar after so long. Hyungwon stands there in a long coat, drawing attention immediately to himself owing to his height. Kihyun spots him easily, and a small smile graces his lips.

“Hey.”

“Hey, Hyungwonnie. It’s good to see you.”

When they aren’t busy duelling with razor-like insults at each other’s throats, Kihyun and Hyungwon make a rather odd but amicable couple. He’s told his parents that he’d rather they spend the day doing business in the coffee shop instead of picking him up, and when he feels his whole body slink into Hyungwon’s side, he’s glad he made that choice.

Kihyun is bursting at the seams. He should tell Hyungwon. He should say something — anything. Tell someone. Yet all he can do is lean on the taller boy and wishing he’d bring it up somehow.

“You look terrible. Not really the state someone should be in after coming back from another country.” There is no poke, just the cold hard truth, and while Kihyun normally appreciates Hyungwon’s candidness, he’s unsure if it’s the thing he wants to listen to right now.

“Well, I wasn’t exactly sightseeing.”

Hyungwon snorts. “I’d be an idiot to believe you didn’t do all of that in your first month.”

Kihyun offers a small smile. “You’re right.” There’s a reason why Hyungwon is and has remained his best friend.

A stunted silence, and Hyungwon clears his throat before suddenly straightening out his back as he walks. “So. I don’t see Minhyuk around, huh?”

The name leaves a bitter taste at the tip of Kihyun’s tongue. What’s he supposed to say?

“I was going to call him to ask if he wanted to take the train here together but then I went onto his social networking sites. He hasn’t posted anything in two months.”

Kihyun inhales. He doesn’t need Hyungwon to explain it to him, not when he’s monitoring Minhyuk’s social media activity daily.

“So I wised up and texted Hoseok hyung instead.”

Kihyun doesn’t know what to say, so he settles on a “sorry you had to hear it from someone else”.

Hyungwon’s laugh is sour. Kihyun feels his gut twisting.

“I had every mind to call you up and tell you off, you know. How could you do this to me? I thought we were friends, Kihyunnie.”

The boy gulps, chuckles tiredly. “We are. It’s just — I didn’t know how to bring it up. ‘ _Hey Hyungwon, how’s the weather in Seoul? So I fucked things up with Minhyuk and now we’re no longer together’_?”

“You know, that wouldn’t have been half bad.”

The irony runs deep, so Kihyun laughs. “Oh, it’s bad. Not half — whole bad.”

“For you?” Hyungwon looks at him curiously. “Or for him?”

Kihyun shrugs. “For us both, I suppose.”

“God, Kihyun,” Hyungwon shakes his head, wondering what on earth is he supposed to do with his mess of a friend. “What are we going to do with you?”

And Kihyun shrugs again, because pretending like he doesn’t know the answer never hurts.

*****

Falling in love is easy. Falling in love with other people that aren’t Minhyuk is hard.

Everyone is but a replica of Minhyuk. The ghost of the memories of him transferred to another being so that Kihyun can pour and pour and _pour_ those feelings he’s never had the courage to feel all those years ago into someone else.

But like all ghosts, they remain a figment of his imagination, only the _idea_ of Minhyuk lingers, and his partners soon catch on that Kihyun’s fondness lies in the concept of being with them and not the people themselves.

So he traipses between partners, some bewitchingly handsome, others charmingly plain, but they all share traces of a spark that Kihyun has only seen in its entirety in only one single person throughout his whole life.

And he doesn’t want it to be the case. Oftentimes, just before going to bed, Kihyun considers if it was the nature of Minhyuk being his first love that warranted such potency to his emotions.

It was not entirely untrue, of course, for the phrase ‘one’s first love is most unforgettable’ exists, and must exist for a good reason. He must have allowed it to hinder his judgement, one way or another, because every partner he’s had — under Hyungwon’s keen observation — bear a certain resemblance to Minhyuk.

Be it the way they spoke, the way they held themselves, the vivacity in their personalities, they all had something in them that _felt_ like Minhyuk. But more than anything, it was perhaps the undivided attention they gave Kihyun that bore the most similarity. Kihyun was an easy planet for one to throw itself into his orbit. It was easy to spiral around him like tiny moons, tugging relentlessly to form waves and washing up his shores in frequent tidal crashes.

And Kihyun? He adores the attention, as he’s always been for too long, always taking, taking, but never giving.

Because at the end of the day, heartbreak or not, Kihyun finds it hard to learn from his lessons and move on from being the person that he is. Realistic, but also selfish.

*****

‘Self-sabotage’ was the word Hyungwon coined for each and every single one of his more serious relationships. Kihyun would initially deny anything of the sort, but a pattern seemed to form, more and more pronounced, and he wonders if he’s developed that behaviour because Hyungwon pointed it out, or if it was there to begin with.

Hyungwon observes and concludes that Kihyun tends to throw a relationship into the flames whenever any sign of stability surfaces. He asks Kihyun if he’s afraid of commitment — Kihyun mutters a _psh_ and tells him to get lost.

But then it happens. And it happens. And then it happens again. It happened during his time in Sydney as he shuffled through lovers, and it happens again after graduating from university, back in Seoul, under Hyungwon’s watchful eye.

Kihyun doesn’t know why it happens. Was he afraid? Perhaps less so by the idea of commitment and more so the fear of potentially having a happily ever after with people that just didn’t seem quite right. The fear that should he start thinking of someone as a stable partner, that they would have it in their power to hurt him.

(And Kihyun never receives hurt, only inflicts it.)

But Hyungwon’s observations get him thinking, and Kihyun tries, as best as he can, to stop himself for self-sabotaging. It’s not fair to his boyfriends; they deserve better. So he tries to not flinch when one of his partners casually comments on them being long-time boyfriends. Tries not to shun away from them when they suggest moving in with him.

And so he tries, and he excels, but Kihyun hates that he’s right. He tries it once, twice, thrice, and realises that while his relationships become more fruitful and substantial, that he’s also hurt once, twice, thrice too many times.

He tells Hyungwon that after one of his more hurtful breakups, and his head is leaned on Hyungwon’s bony shoulder. The taller man sighs, patting him lightly on his knee.

“But buddy, that’s how it works. Getting hurt is part of the game, and you keep getting hurt until you find the right one.”

But of course Kihyun wouldn’t have known before — he only took, never gave, and so he could never hurt. It was in that moment Kihyun realised just how unbelievably selfish he had been, all his life, that he cared only for his defences, protecting himself, and never spared a thought for the people he went out with.

His mind goes directly to Minhyuk. Was this what Minhyuk felt when they broke up, when he said those terrible and untrue things about him? Did he just cower defenceless as Kihyun threw his spears and arrows at him?

Is this what it’s like to give as much as he takes? Guilt gnaws at him relentlessly, and Kihyun starts to squirm from where he is, unsettled and uneasy.

*****

Minhyuk is not drunk. He still recognises faces, people, greetings. Still remembers Changkyun telling him ‘hyung, you’re drunk’. _He’s not drunk._

He is, however, tired of having Hoseok baby him constantly. He seems to cling onto him like an unyielding shadow, constantly doing weird side glances in Minhyuk’s direction. Grabbing his chance as Hoseok speaks to Jooheon excitedly about a new fitness program his gym is offering, Minhyuk sneaks out of the ballroom, glad to be away from the crowd.

His head clears up a little at the fresh air, his limbs feeling less like an elastic being pulled around, and his head doesn’t spin as much.

Passers-by come and go, and Minhyuk watches them, a few he recognises to be guests at Changkyun’s wedding, others random people, in pairs, alone, drunk, sober. He should probably return to his room. Get some rest. They have another day in Jeju and then they have to pack up and leave, Changkyun heading straight to the Maldives for his honeymoon.

Minhyuk is most likely going to spend his last day on the island with a throbbing headache, though it’s all part of the fun.

Minhyuk has gone so long without a steady boyfriend. It’s not really something he actively seeks — sometimes you just have to wait for things to fall into place on their own — and though the ones he’s been in have all been amicable relationships, he finds himself forgetting what it’s like to be with someone.

To have someone there for him emotionally and physically, to be a literal shoulder to cry on, to sing him with praises when he fishes for them.

He doesn’t deny that he’s not easy to love. Minhyuk is temperamental, the best possible meaning to that word, wherein his demands change as quickly as the weather, as do his expectations.

People struggle to keep up with him, as if he is constantly in the fast lane, everyone trying to go after him, willing him to stop. Stop being impatient, stop going so quickly, stop asking for this only to hate it tomorrow.

It’s not Minhyuk’s fault that other people just seem so much easier to be around. Not his fault that he cares too much but doesn’t express an equal amount. Not his fault that he chooses to keep all his feelings to himself only to put on a melodrama at the worst of times.

Leaned against the marbled walls of the hotel, Minhyuk wonders (even though he knows it’s 50% of the alcohol talking and 50% of receiving that misplaced sorry from Kihyun during the dance) if he’ll ever find love again.

Sure, he’s loved all those people he’d dated to varying degrees, but he never saw permanence in the love. He went out with them wondering if he was going to wake up the next morning and stop loving them, and sometimes, he did.

Then he wonders why he should be made to think of things like that. Something starts catching fire within him, a growing flame. It ignites on the alcohol in his system, and warning bells start blaring at him.

No, he’s being stupid. He’s rash. This is dumb.

Minhyuk stumbles back to the ballroom, his legs criss-crossing and his vision almost blurs. But he’s not drunk, just a little woozy and angry, for some reason. He’s angry, he realises, and the fire burns brighter, glowing.

He inhales. The oxygen he takes in fans the fire even though it should help clear his mind, and he knows the only person that can put it out is Hoseok. Where the _fuck_ is he? The man should be more than easy to spot, but Minhyuk struggles to locate him, even though the dinner is nearing its end and people should be leaving.

A hand grabs onto his arm, and Minhyuk is so out of it that he almost flings it away, until he turns to see Jooheon. The man stares at him, a crease forming between his brows.

“Hyung. Are you okay?”

He breathes. “Hoseok hyung. Where is he?”

He needs Hoseok hyung to talk some sense into him before he does something irrational. Hoseok hyung would tell him to sit the hell down and to not go anywhere, tie him up if he needs to. If there’s anything he is, it’s that he is deadly protective. Minhyuk needs protection, mostly from himself and his alcohol-addled brain making bad decisions for him.

“I think he went back to the room, said something about looking for you.” Jooheon stills for a second, seems to have noticed Minhyuk swaying lightly on his feet, and presses his lips together. “Shall I call him for you?”

Shaking his head, Minhyuk replies, “I’ve already tried. He’s not picking up.”

“Must be taking a shower or something. Shall I send you back to your room, hyung?” As an afterthought, “your cheeks are really red. Did you have a lot to drink?”

He blinks. “No, I’m okay. You run along. I just. I need Hoseok hyung. I’ll head back to the room. It’s okay.”

Not convinced. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Just go, okay?”

He doesn’t look like he believes him, but Jooheon doesn’t want to push. “Okay. You be careful, please.”

“I will. Go.”

Jooheon lets him go, but not before pulling out his phone and typing a message, his sight only leaving Minhyuk once the man has pulled open the heavy ballroom doors and swung his way out.

And hence begins Minhyuk’s arduous hike back to the main lobby. His thoughts feel like treacle sliding around in his system, slow, viscous. He waits for the lift to arrive and jabs mindlessly at his floor, thankful that there’s no one sharing the ride with him.

One of the numbers on the buttons glares at him. Minhyuk knows what it’s trying to do, coaxing him out of going straight back to his room and successfully making the worst mistake ever.

But he’s mildly intoxicated, the orange light keeps swinging over his head, and fuck it, he’s worried about everything all the time; it’s time someone else had to deal with that worry.

So he punches the button with more force than is necessary, and when the lift pulls up to Storey 14, Minhyuk trudges his way out without much thought.

That’s why people get drunk, isn’t it? To let down their inhibitions and to do things they would never otherwise do with a clear mind. To hell with worrying. Minhyuk gives no fucks in this exact moment, and he allows the adrenaline to course through him in intense surges as he raps on the door that reads ‘1453’.

The wait is kind of unbearable. Minhyuk has all this anger in him that’s waiting to explode and it has no tolerance for 15 more seconds of nothingness. So he knocks on the door again, louder this time, and he hears a voice inside screaming “I’m coming, just hang on for a second, Jesus!” and Minhyuk doesn’t know what to do now that he’s suddenly faced with the real person.

God, he’s a fucking idiot. He hasn’t thought this through at all, has he? (His confused mind helpfully tells him that it’s kind of the point.)

The door swings open, revealing an extremely annoyed Kihyun, and Minhyuk is tempted to act like his usual self and cower from him.

“Minhyuk.” He sounds surprised, almost, and Minhyuk wonders what kind of a person he’s presented himself in Kihyun’s eyes. Weak? Cowardly?

“Can I come in?”

There’s little need for pleasantries, but Minhyuk regrets to admit that a small portion of his fury has been quenched at the sight of Kihyun in his bathrobe, his fringe still dripping with water droplets.

“Uh,” Kihyun frowns, his lips doing a little twitch, “sure, come on in.”

He pushes the door wider, and Minhyuk walks in slowly, taking in the surroundings. The room is bathed in a similar shade of orange like his and Hoseok’s room, and Hyungwon is, unsurprisingly, not present. Probably throwing up in some dark alley, from the looks of it.

A black suitcase sits primly by the bathroom door, and there are toiletries scattered all over what can only be Kihyun’s bed. He seems to have been packing for their departure, even though they have another day to go. Minhyuk is mildly confused, but he doesn’t pose a question.

“What brings you here?” Bewilderment. Not really the emotion Minhyuk was hoping to evoke, but he supposes it’s as good as any other.

“Why? Am I not welcome?” Minhyuk asks. Alcohol makes all his worry dissipate, and in place is a sensitive being, edges sharp and deadly harbouring every intention to hurt.

“That’s literally not what I said. I just told you to come in.” Defensive, the same way Kihyun has always been. Well, at least one of them is being themselves today. “Did you decide to come over at,” he looks at the clock on his bedside table, “1:34AM just to be sassy?”

Of course Kihyun would retaliate. Minhyuk thinks back about the apology Kihyun had given on the dancefloor, a seemingly genuine one at that point of time, and the anger in him flares up again. How dare he give apologies like Minhyuk is supposed to just accept them?

That’s what he’s done all the time, isn’t it? He feeds him words and expects Minhyuk to just… deal with them. And why is he so hostile now? Is it just his personality speaking, or was he hurt by Minhyuk not acknowledging his heartfelt sorry?

Minhyuk tastes bitter at the back of his tongue. “And why not?” he asks, challenging, tone filled with little spikes that only hurt if he comes any closer. “Maybe for once I’ll get to finally say my share, say the shit I should’ve said instead of sitting there and letting you hurl insults at me.”

Kihyun’s eyes widen. He didn’t know it was going to be that kind of a conversation. He blinks, more surprised than before, and Minhyuk pounces on his chance to attack.

“Yeah. Let’s maybe talk about that break-up.”

Kihyun sighs. “It’s been seven years.”

Oh, the fucking nerve. “Seven years for you, but it feels just like yesterday for me. I always remembered what you said, Kihyun, those nasty things, how I was annoying, clingy, how I was just there for convenience. I remember them from time to time, and it might delight you to know that it still manages to break me down.”

“Why would it delight me?” He frowns. He would be the last person on Earth to want to hear of Minhyuk’s permanent residence in the shadow of his adolescent hotheadedness.

“Wasn’t that why you said it in the first place? To hurt me? Wouldn’t you be glad to hear that your intentions had effects lasting a whole seven years?”

“Minhyuk, I — I’m sorry. It’s been so long. I said that all in a moment of pique, I was young and stupid, and I didn’t mean any of it.”

He sees fire. “Yeah? Why didn’t you do something then? Back then? You were going to be back in Seoul in another month’s time. I was here. I was — fuck, I was _waiting_ for you. Despite all those things you said, I wanted — my mind was begging you to take it back. It wouldn’t have mattered even if you didn’t say sorry. If only you would come back. We could start again. I’d work on my insecurities if you worked on your selfishness, and if you bothered to think before you speak. I would — I was ready to let it all go. But you never fucking returned.”

Minhyuk’s voice breaks on the last syllable, and Kihyun is frozen on the spot. What is he to say? He supposes there’s nothing much to say. He could say sorry again, but he has a feeling Minhyuk doesn’t have an issue with his current apology, only the one he should have said seven years ago.

“I can’t turn back time, Minhyuk. I can only say sorry again, now.”

“Did you know how much it hurt?” Minhyuk asks, with a tone of finality, and his voice increases in pitch, a little airy, almost trailing off into a squeak.

Kihyun’s chest clenches. “I —”

“I don’t want your lousy sorrys, Kihyun, I just want you to fucking understand. That you can’t just — you can’t make someone fall in love with you and then say all these things. You can’t just reverse everything, let them pour everything they have into you, and then tell them that you’ve never loved them before.” His lower lip trembles, his words a whisper, “If you were going to do that, then don’t let them fall in love.”

“I can’t — how can I stop someone from falling in love with me, Minhyuk?” He sounds resigned, his words tumbling out in an exhale, and his eyes are wet.

Minhyuk almost chuckles, because Kihyun is right. How _can_ Minhyuk resist the urge to fall in love with Kihyun? It seemed and still seems unlikely, no matter at what stage of his life. But maybe he just wants to put the blame onto Kihyun for once. Blame him for all the things he can’t help, the same way Kihyun did to him.

Kihyun sighs. God, of course he knew how much he’d hurt Minhyuk. He saw him crumble before his eyes just as he slammed the laptop shut. He saw that quake shaking from within him, ripping him apart, and the deafening sob that left his lips, the absolute agony in his cries.

Of course Kihyun knew just how much damage he’d made, but it didn’t mean that he was ready to put down his pride. 18-year-old Yoo Kihyun was really a hell of a bastard.

“Minhyuk. I’m sorry. I just —”

Then there are tears. The tears Kihyun had last seen through a few pixels come flowing out unhindered, and Minhyuk wipes at them hurriedly with the back of his hand as he sniffs.

“This is stupid. I’m drunk. I shouldn’t have come here. I’m sorry,” he decides in a sudden moment of clarity, and Kihyun feels his heart sink. He’s finally come clean, found the courage to be honest to himself and to Kihyun, and somehow he still finds a need to apologise.

“No, Minhyuk, please, don’t — I’m sorry. I’m the sorry one. I just — I fucked up. Really bad. I should’ve never said any of that stuff, I — it was silly. I did it as some petty revenge, because your initiating the breakup hurt my feelings and I fought back the only way I knew how to. It’s fucked up. I — I tried to tell myself to just say sorry but I couldn’t — I was embarrassed at the way I behaved. Like a child, like a fucking five-year-old who calls people names because he’s upset, and it’s — I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean any of it. You being annoying, clingy. And —”

He inhales. Exhales.

“And the biggest lie I ever said was that I never loved you. Minhyuk. I —”

The dark-haired man looks up with tears welling in his eyes, and Kihyun feels his heart give way. Minhyuk really made him so unbelievably happy. Everything he was was just right for Kihyun.

The right amount of laughter, ironically, the right amount of inappropriateness, the right amount of giving him hugs whenever he needs them, and his presence allowed Kihyun to let himself loose.

Wedged between their dates and cuddles were the serious conversations, where Minhyuk shared his worries about their future after high school, where he told Kihyun to go for his dreams and to follow his heart.

And Kihyun always did, follow his heart, that is, which is why he finds himself going back to Minhyuk, time and time again.

“And when I finally got my head out of my ass, you were already with someone else. I remember. I came back from Sydney being nervous and all that and asked Hyungwon which campus you went to. Just being a creep and all, with a bunch of dumb flowers. Don’t know what I was expecting. But you were with someone else. A cute boy with big eyes, lovely smile,” he laughs, though humour is lost between them, “and I thought I was too late.” As an additional point: “you looked so happy. Happier than you would have ever been with me.”

Minhyuk looks like he’s about to say something, but he doesn’t. He’s mostly angry that Hyungwon hadn’t told him about Kihyun trying to look for him. (And _flowers_?)

“It’s been seven years of learning things the hard way so I can say it now, but Minhyuk, I really was the world’s biggest jackass. I’m sorry you had to put up with me. For everything I did. I was immature. Foolish. Selfish. Still am, really. I thought to at least do you a last favour — banish myself from your life, if only it meant you could be happier. It doesn’t make me happy to know that my jackassery has been haunting you this whole time.”

Minhyuk is suddenly at a loss for words. What is he supposed to say to this? Kihyun… seems so different. Repentant. Minhyuk came storming into his room in the first place expecting to leave with a harsh last sentence and make Kihyun eat his dust.

Maybe Kihyun had changed for the better, and the idea strikes him as surprising. It seems he’s placed Kihyun into a box, a box that labels him as strong-headed, wilful, selfish, and unaccepting of his own flaws.

The dark-haired man stays silent, stares right back at Kihyun, the shorter man’s gaze imploring, guilty, even. The atmosphere in the room is tense, and Minhyuk has to remember to breathe. It’s like they’re waiting for something. A distraction. Maybe Hyungwon will barge into the room screaming at the top of his lungs.

Instead, all he does is ask the silliest question that had bothered him before.

“That time you went to look for me. You bought flowers?” he asks in a tiny voice, and Kihyun breaks into a smile that he cannot fend off.

“Yeah. Tulips, your favourite, right?”

Minhyuk’s expression softens. “Right,” he agrees with a short nod, and then he feels moisture welling up in him again, though for an entirely different reason now.

“Why didn’t you try?” He manages to croak out, and Kihyun’s brows rise to hide behind his fringe. “Hmm?”

“When you saw me with my new boyfriend. Why didn’t you try? It isn’t like you to just give up. Tenacious, they used to call you in school.”

Kihyun shakes his head, a little forlorn. There is a sad smile hanging by his lips. “I’m not a homewrecker, Minhyuk. Hardly any place for tenacity when I was the one who messed up in the first place.”

Minhyuk swallows. “I would have.”

The grey-haired man holds his gaze, waiting.

“Would have chosen you over him, if you had tried.”

Minhyuk doesn’t tell him he’d choose Kihyun over and over again, even if he was pit against the best options made available. Because Kihyun was far from the best option, but he was the only option Minhyuk had ever wanted. A single-choice question.

Follow your heart, they said. And so Minhyuk made a home for Kihyun in his heart, and no matter how far he goes, Minhyuk returns home.

Kihyun’s eyes widen, and he visibly gulps. Minhyuk breathes in shakily, steadies himself and his racing heart.

This is not the place, nor the time for a confession. Minhyuk doesn’t have a confession now, not until he sorts himself out and knows what it is exactly that he feels about Kihyun.

But the fact that Kihyun had turned out to be the last person he had expected him to become is… overwhelming. Minhyuk has to demolish all previous opinions about him, has to remove all those little labels he’s pasted onto him and assumptions he’s made on his character. Because it _has_ been seven years after all, and some records require updating.

It’s just that Minhyuk has spent seven years hating on Kihyun. Resenting him for the decisions he made, for the person that he was, for the things that he’d said, that it almost feels like he’s knowing him for the first time.

Like a stranger, only this stranger is the main character in all of his pleasant memories, and is someone that he finds himself going back to all the time, without fail.

Kihyun chews on his lower lip, and Minhyuk stares at his pink, thin lips, and he aches. Everything in him aches. His eyes are sore and his head is pounding, and by Lord is he beautiful.

But not now. Not like this. They’re not high schoolers anymore, not rash teens who act before they think. And he isn’t going to let Kihyun drown him until he knows what he is now, 25-year-old Yoo Kihyun, a drastically different person from who he was seven years ago.

“Minhyuk, I —”

“Thank you.”

“Sorry?”

“Thank you. For telling me all that. For being sorry. I think — I think I’ve spent too much time thinking of you a certain way, and I just. I needed to get it off my chest. Thank you for letting me do that.”

“Min —”

“I think. Maybe. I can actually finally start working on healing, and maybe put it behind me. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” He glances at him wistfully, and Kihyun seems like he has so much to say, his chest puffed up, his mouth opening and closing.

But this talk isn’t for him. It’s for Minhyuk. So he dutifully reins himself in, and Minhyuk smiles so sadly that it makes his heart break.

“Maybe I’ll be able to finally let myself off. And you. And then maybe I’ll move on for real this time.”

The words prick at Kihyun’s chest, but he doesn’t know what else there is to say. He can’t be selfish anymore. Can’t expect an image of himself to still loiter in the recesses of Minhyuk’s mind, and hope for Minhyuk to reciprocate his hopeful visions of their possible future. Minhyuk will move on, away from Kihyun, and maybe that is the best for everyone.

The dark-haired man just smiles again, a tight one, his lips forming a thin line, and his eyes are cheerless. Kihyun’s heart squeezes.

“Have a safe flight back, Kihyun.”

And Kihyun doesn’t know why the greeting has such a sinister tone of conclusiveness to it, almost like he’s never going to see him again.

(Again, Kihyun has to remind himself that if that is what it takes for Minhyuk to move on, it is what it is.)

The word lingers by the ends of his lips, and Kihyun wants to say them so desperately. Wants to be 18-year-old Kihyun who acts before he speaks again, wants Minhyuk to just _stay_. But the words are never uttered, and the taller man shrugs, takes in a deep breath, and turns around.

“Goodnight, Minhyuk,” is what he says to Minhyuk’s back instead, and he thinks he hears him chuckle softly before the door closes behind him.

That night, Kihyun doesn’t find sleep for a long, long time, and when he finally manages to fall asleep, even in his disoriented slumber, he only dreams of wide smiles, husky singing, and tulips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t know if any of you were expecting Kihyun to not be the jackass anymore because it’s always really been Minhyuk’s POV most of the time, hasn’t it? And his perspective of Kihyun is terribly flawed. Something happened in this chapter! That's cool!   
> Might be looking at another 1-2 chapters and we're wrapping up, but don't take my word for it.
> 
> kudos and comments are much appreciated!  
> twt: @jookination

**Author's Note:**

> twt: @jookination  
> kudos and comments are always appreciated!


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